The Business of Strangers
Director and writer: Patrick Stettner
Cast: Stockard Channing, Julia Stiles, Frederick Weller
Rating: R—language, sexual situations, the harsh realization that a movie is smarter than you...

Imagine if your father woke you out of a deep slumber because he had something important to tell you. He’s your dad, so you listen intently. He’s the one that says your prayers with you every night. He listens to your schoolyard stories, offers math advice, and gives you a kiss on the forehead before beddy time. What he has to say has to be the most important thing since you discovered Dick and Jane.

“God came to me in a vision, boys,” he says in a toasty voice that beckons like comfort food. “He told me there was work to be done. You see, the end of the world is coming soon, and Jesus will be coming to take us to heaven. But first, he wants us to do something for him. Apparently, there are demons in human form that walk this earth. God wants us to smite these imposters. We are to be called God’s Hands. He is supposed to send us three weapons. We must wait for the sign to tell us where the weapons will be.”

“If I could spare you this,” he says in an aw-shucks delivery, “I would. But God has willed this, and we must obey God. Good night.”

This is what Fenton (Matthew O’Leary) and Adam Meiks (Jeremy Sumpter) are supposed to digest. Their lovable single father (Bill Paxton — “A Simple Plan”, “Titanic”) has had a conference with the angels. It’s God’s decree handed down into Daddy’s decree; the two most authoritative voices out there. If the kids can open presents from an over weight man of the North Pole, then surely they can raise an axe for Dad and God.

So begins the chilling tale of “Frailty,” a movie about how far a child will believe a parent’s stretched tongue. However, the way the movie is depicted, the viewer is also the child. Is Dad (the father’s name is never mentioned in the movie) a complete freak (like Fenton believes he is), or does he actually have bonified visions (which Adam believes)?

The other gullible child is FBI agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe —“The Emerald Forest”). He has just met the older Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey), a bizarre fellow who claims that the God’s Hands Killer is Adam Meiks, who took over the murderous rampage once Dad died. No matter that the F.B.I. has looked into this case for years and every lead they’ve had is colder than a brass knob on a glacier. Funny, how a guy can just show up in H.Q. and claim to know the crime of the century. However, Fenton points out that, “sometimes the truth defies reason. Out of desperation, Wesley bites, and Fenton begins his voice over of the origin of the God’s Hand slaughters.

Fenton is the skeptic, and we see the story through his eyes. He never believes his father for a minute, even when good old Dad starts bringing “sinners” home as proof. Dad knows they’re demons when he lays his hands on them. If he feels the presence, it’s time for a little hack, courtesy of an axe that God pointed out to Dad. When Fenton threatens to go to the police, good old Dad does some delicate picking on the heartstrings — “If you do that, son, I’ll die. The angel was clear on this.”

It’s hard to dislike Dad. He’s honest. He speaks in feathered tones. He’s good to his two boys. He never lays a hand on his children and he never raises his voice when speaking of the demons he has to destroy. I liked Dad, and I found him to be quite the upstanding guy when he wasn’t braining someone in the back. I felt like the child, wanting to believe that Pops was actually getting rid of an overpopulation of forked fiends.

The true fabricator of this grim tale is Bill Paxton (some of you may remember him immortally as Chet, the Nazi-esque older brother in “Weird Science”), who stars and directs the movie. It’s his first picture behind the camera, and he handles the twist and turns with the clever deft of a Hitchcock. The writer, Brent Hanley, definitely had Hitchcock in mind when he wrote this tale, and the ending rivals those of “Psycho” and “Rear Window.”

Paxton also manages to creep out without resorting to gratuitous gore. We never see the axe meet the flesh, only the thought of it (which actually scares me a lot more). The other unsettling notion this movie presents is that any parent can prey on a child’s believability. Paxton exposes this for all its awfulness, but at the same time, he makes the viewer think that maybe good old Dad is telling the truth. That, to me, is the most unsettling part of all.

That sickening feeling of being swindled surfaced when I watched “The Business of Strangers,” a movie that lies to the viewer, the protagonists, and even itself. The film doles out characters that are supposed to be what they proclaim. You believe them and you settle into that comfort zone of face value. But then they begin to unlock their secrets like some cobwebbed cask that no one wants to open. Bats and ghouls fly out, and the viewer learns that these people with their lottery smiles and pressed suits are present-day ogres. Or are they? The beauty of “The Business of Strangers” is the infinite flip-flop that happens throughout the movie. Evil one minute, charitable the next.

Even the rental box was misleading. The two main characters were on the front — sultry women who promised a night of taboo. I rolled my eyes at the rental prospect, but our pickings were mighty slim. The movie promised cheese, and instead I got a brain blender that could have outfoxed Agatha Christie.

I also thought I could never enjoy a three-character movie. I complained (openly) that I might as well go see a play. I was used to a flotilla of characters.

Character #1 is Julie Styron (Stockard Channing in her best performance ever), a no-nonsense software seller who eats smaller companies for brunch. Her coifed hair and wound up business suit display a woman who has two-mile boundaries around her persona. The parameters are lengthened because Julie is having a bad day, which is soured even more when her A/V tech person shows up 45 minutes late for a vital presentation. This tardy tech is Character #2 — Paula Murphy (Julia Stiles).

Julie uses her black heart reserves to instantaneously fire Julie, before rushing off to a hotel for a stiff double. Julie then meets up with Character #3 — Nick Harris (Frederick Weller), a grease-haired executive headhunter. Nick is slimy, a python in a $1,000 suit. His smiles are summoned from other company’s losses.

Julie finds out from her boss that she’s been promoted to CEO. Relieved, Julie decides to keep drinking. In walks her firee, Paula, who has also missed her flight due to Julie’s haphazard thoughts. Feeling guilty, Julie invites Paula for dinner and drinks. The mind games soon commence.

Paula tells Julie that she really wants to be a writer. Her Dartmouth education is just a springboard for bigger and better things. She shows her rebellion with a spider tattoo that waits for prey at the base of her neck. The gals begin a series of one-up-womanship.

Soon it becomes evident that the younger Paula has the upper hand. Julie has divulged inner secrets and Paula begins to use them against her. “Your best friend is your secretary. That’s pathetic,” Paula ice-heartedly says at one point. Paula begins to make Julie realize that although she’s a female CEO, she’s still no more than a germ in a big man’s corporate world.

Thoughts become muddled as the alcohol rises. Paula continues her mind labyrinths. Stories of rape crop up, and Julie begins to realize that her existence is nothing. Nick soon appears (with hair still intact), and he is drawn into the web. The final events (spilling them out would ruin the movie) change each person. Because of their insistence on not being real, the truth smacks them around and leaves them in a damaged retrospective shell.

The landscape of “Business” is even misleading. The viewer is exposed to the corporate world of missed flights, soulless hotel lobbies, and financial wrangling over a double Jack and water. This is supposed to provide for a sterile background, a place where only capital robots tread. But underneath this boring slickness are people with a myriad of stories to tell. And none of them are what they seem. Is Julie really as tough as she puts on? And does she really enjoy her throne amongst the patriarchy? Is Paula really a writer, or for that matter, a Dartmouth grad? Is Nick as heartless as he seems, or does his job command him to be like that out in the open? These questions are answered and then retracted. The solution comes in the end. Or does it? “The Business of Strangers” never really gives a straightforward answer.

First time director Patrick Stettner has created a maze of a movie, toying with our emotions as if they were on puppet strings. He has created such a good thriller, it seems that even the movie is fooled by its own cleverness. Dick would have approved.

(Hunter Pope can be reached at w.h.pope@worldnet.att.net)