'The Stranger' is a great selection for a late night, low budget cable thriller. Bonnie Bedelia is Alice Kildee, a woman who suffers from a bought of amnesia after witnessing a murder. Peter Reigert is the mild-mannered psychiatrist, Dr. Harris Kite, who works with her to help her remember what happened that night that her car went off the road and she wound up in the hospital. When the cops begin investigating Kildee's predicament, they assume she can lead them to a killer. But they stupidly decide that the only way they will find any information as to her identity, is to put her picture on the television news and in the newspapers. Her attackers, wanting something that they think Kildee knows the whereabouts of and wanting to kill the only woman who can tie them to the murder, decide to track her down. The only one who can really protect her, and who can help her piece together her memories of the event, Dr. Kite, is also limited by his own faults: the leader of the guys looking for Alice Kildee promise to square a tremendous gambling debt in exchange for his information.
The movie offers enough red herrings and stories of rather subtle double-cross to make it a fairly well paced plot, with decent acting to back it up. And, as other viewers have already commented, what you assume Alice's memories to reveal in the beginning of the film, are completely different by the end of the film. Despite the tendency of b-grade 80s thrillers to disappoint on several levels (and most importantly, within the plot), this one is well worth trying.
The movie offers enough red herrings and stories of rather subtle double-cross to make it a fairly well paced plot, with decent acting to back it up. And, as other viewers have already commented, what you assume Alice's memories to reveal in the beginning of the film, are completely different by the end of the film. Despite the tendency of b-grade 80s thrillers to disappoint on several levels (and most importantly, within the plot), this one is well worth trying.