Perfect Stranger Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)April 11th, 2007
PERFECT STRANGER
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *
In PERFECT STRANGER, Halle Berry is off-the-scale bad as Rowena ("Ro"), an investigative reporter who is working deep undercover as a temp in the largest ad agency in New York. Never credible for a single minute, Berry's performance might not be so bad if she wasn't the entire picture. Sure, supporting characters swirl around her, giving pretty awful performances as well, but Berry is in just about every scene, and the movie is about her character.
Almost as bad as Berry's acting is the script by Todd Komarnicki, which is based on a story attributed to Jon Bokenkamp. Never able to create compelling characters, the narrative just marks time until it arrives at its completely arbitrary ending. The capricious choice made rather reminds one of the movie CLUE, which shot several different endings which were shown in different theaters. In PERFECT STRANGER, they could have chosen at random any of the main characters and show us in the conclusion how that one was the killer. The person picked and the explanations given are pretty mind boggling, but you won't care by that point.
Among the many main characters, including Ro, who could have killed Ro's friend Grace (Nicki Aycox), there are Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), the head of the ad agency, Mia (Paula Miranda), Harrison's jealous wife, Cameron (Gary Dourdan), Grace's ex-boyfriend and Ro's current squeeze, and Miles Haley (Giovanni Ribisi), Ro's investigative partner who wishes he was her boyfriend.
Before Grace is killed she tells Ro that she has been having an affair with Harrison. Grace likes to say ominously -- and not particularly originally -- things like, "actions have consequences." Early on in the story, all fingers point to Harrison as the killer. After all, he is a take-no-prisoners businessman with slogans which include "Eat or be eaten." Mia, who has the money in the family, doesn't like the way her husband sleeps around with the help at the office, so he has sworn to stop his philandering but obviously hasn't. Mia and all of the women at the agency are such poorly drawn characters and look so much alike that it is easy to get them all confused. Could this be the secret to why Harrison appears to be ready to seduce them all? Maybe he too can't tell them apart?
I wish I could say that PERFECT STRANGER was at least laughably bad, but it's just merely bad. And I wish I could tell you that it has lots of sleaze so that you might enjoy it as a guilty pleasure, but this is an R-rated film that is so mild I thought it was PG-13 until I saw the rating later.
PERFECT STRANGER runs 1:49. It is rated R for "sexual content, nudity, some disturbing violent images and language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 13, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
