"Perfect Stranger"

A week ago, a new movie came out on DVD staring Bruce Willis, and Halle Berry called “Perfect Stranger.” I vaguely remember the movie when it hit the theaters, but the previews certainly did not grab me enough to want to go pay the big bucks to see it. After looking up the box office numbers of only 23 Million total, I was obviously not the only person who felt this way.

Halle plays an investigative reporter Rowena Price. After finding out one of her friends has been killed after having an affair with the president of a rich Ad agency (Harrison Hill played by Bruce) She quits her job, and gets hired on through a temp service working for Harrison in an attempt to infiltrate his private life, and find out if he is the one responsible for her friends death. Harrison is of course married, but by no means faithful to his wife. Things get complicated, when Harrison sets his eyes on his new temp worker. Rowena plays up to him to get in even closer to his personal affairs, but things get even stickier after Harrison catches wind of her plan. Giovanni Ribisi, plays the creepy friend of Rowena who obviously would like to be much more then a friend, and is obviously one of the dark horses in this Who-dun-it film.

Bruce very rarely plays in a dud movie, but I think his name is starting to stretch pretty thin these days. His character barely holds my interest in this film, and the chemistry between Bruce and Halle is non existent. Halle on the other hand, is even worse. Her scatterbrained character never really took on any true form at all, and even in the scenes where what little talent she has as an actress shows through, ends up being over acted. A few skimpy, tight fitting outfits, and a sex scene (which was also bad) does not save this movie in anyway, so all you Halle fans out there, don’t waste your time. Director James Foley can not take full blame for this movie, but even with a different cast, I’m not sure this script could have survived. There is almost no cohesiveness to the story, and while you’re sitting there waiting for a good scene, or a clue that might lead to revealing who the killer is, the time clock just seems to run out with a loud BUZZ!

The only saving grace for this story is the ending. Exactly one time in the past decade Hollywood has managed to stump me when comes to surprise endings, and that movie was the first “Saw” film. Now I can officially say that it has been twice in the past decade. I had no clue on this one, until it actually happened on screen, so if you are so inclined to rent this movie, just to try and figure out the ending before it happens, be my guest.

I have taken to checking out what people have been saying about these movies I have been reviewing lately, and in couple of instances, my thoughts about a movie I must admit have been very different then some people who left reviews on Amazon or other places. There are some folks that have had good things to say about Perfect Stranger, so who knows, this may be a toss up. Myself, I did not care for the movie as a whole, but there are enough aspects of the movie that may be appealing enough for Bruce or Halle fans to go out and rent this one.

My rating for this movie is 6.00 out of 10.00