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I guess Halle Berry had a great time at the Razzies awards' ceremony when she won a few years ago for Catwoman, because she seems to be going for a repeat win with Perfect Stranger.  Call her the front runner right now!     

Berry stars as Rowena – a big time investigative reporter for a New York daily newspaper.  She is mad as hell her latest expose has been cut from the paper, so she quits out of frustration.  Before you can say, “Rowena needs something to do with all of this time on her hands,” an old friend, Grace (Nicki Aycox), comes to her to admit she has been fooling around with the married leader of a powerful advertising agency, Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis).  It gets so ugly with Hill, Grace turns up dead, so Rowena decides to go undercover as a temp at the agency to see if she can prove Hill’s guilt (and you just know Hill is going to hit on her and try to smooth talk her, because she looks like Halle Berry!  What else is he going to do when she starts flirting with him?).

Will Rowena be able to catch Hill?  Will he figure out what she is up to?

Perfect Stranger was a good, almost very good, thriller until director James Foley and writer Todd Komarnicki went for one too many twists.  Sadly, that last twist is a doozie, and so bad it ruins the entire movie.  Up until the end, Perfect Stranger is a sexy, dangerous movie with plenty to make you think and a challenging mystery to solve.  Foley does a good job giving us little hints as to what may be happening, even making you change your mind a few times throughout the movie, but none of those come to fruition due to the decision to provide an ending that comes out of nowhere. Sure, you won’t see it coming, which is what you might want in a movie, but you don’t see this ending coming because it is absurd, ridiculous, moronic, preposterous, ludicrous, foolish, stupid, and outrageous (I love my thesaurus), none of which is thrilling or satisfying.  It’s like dating a beautiful woman, taking her home, and she turns out to be a dude (this has never happened to me, it’s just a hypothetical).    

So you know, Foley doesn’t stink as a director.  About 10 years ago, typing on a computer didn’t seem like dangerous enough activity for a thriller (The Net), but our world has changed so much that now we can relate and get wrapped up in the intrigue of an on-line chat.  Plus, he paces it all to make us feel the risk involved in Rowena’s deception, and makes us feel like something bad will happen at any moment.  I just wish Berry put in one of her better performances.

I’m not saying Berry stunk up the joint.  I just think she can do better than what we see in Perfect Stranger.  Her anger feels forced and kind of silly, when it should be scaring us or making us feel her rage.  On the good side, Berry and co-star Giovanni Ribisi have some good chemistry, and make the comic relief moments entertaining, instead of dreadful or out of place.  As far as Willis, he does a good job playing the lothario, even making you think he’s kind of bad at it.  Of course, that could be bad writing unintentionally adding something to the character that isn’t supposed to be there (only women hit on by Komarnicki can testify to that one).

Perfect Stranger is a wasted opportunity.

1 Waffle (Out Of 4)   

Perfect Stranger is rated R for sexual content, nudity, some disturbing violent images and language. 

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