Perfect Stranger

What happened to Halle Berry? A few years back she was the new thing, an actress with an Oscar, done a great supporting role in a Bond movie, had some other pretty credible roles, and starred in the blockbuster X-Men and X-Men 2. And then she went off to star in Catwoman. Why she signed on to star in that loathsome little movie is still beyond me, but she clearly learnt here lesson as she collected her Razzie for the movie in person. But after her little performance in this pathetic little Basic Instinct wannabe I am really not sure whether Halle Berry will ever be able to recover. In all fairness she is the best thing in this movie, she at least does make an effort. But I can't say that for the rest of the movie. I suppose the saddening thing here is that this could have worked, with a better script and with a little effort this movie might be good old dumb fun. Unfortunately instead its a plodding caper without an idea where its going and chucking so many red herrings at us it eventually realises it has none left and leaves us with the only other possible ending. The first thing I suppose I will go on about is the acting. Halle Berry as I said is the best thing in this movie, she does her job efficiently. By no means is she good in the movie, but she comes out of the film with her dignity intact. Its amazing she managed to do this as her character is so badly written, so badly characterised that its a wonder any actress could give the character a sense of humanity. However, her opposite lead, Bruce Willis manages to come out of this mearlly sporting his ridiculous set of hair. Not only is his character poorly written, but Bruce Willis is also badly miscast. The role of Harrison Hill requires someone at least a bit younger, and also with a tiny bit of chemistry with Halle Berry. The scenes where the two try to be sexy to one another comes across as skin crawlingly unbearable. The supporting cast are if truth be told even worse. Halle Berry's friend and ally, Miles, played by Giovanni Ribisi just doesn't work. His character at least becomes a bit interesting in the end, but at first he just seems stupid. Basically everyone else is superfluous. The actual storyline of Perfect Stranger could have worked, I mean its your typical sexy thriller and whodunit. These types of movie should play out pretty well, I mean all you have to do is stick to the set of rules that every other one has laid out and your guaranteed something passable. But what that requires is sex appeal, and unfortunately this movie has all the sex appeal of a peanut. While the thriller side manages to scrap average, the sex side of the movie drags the movies quality down to rock bottom. It tries to be slick, sexy, a bit of a Basic Instinct for a new generation. While Basic Instinct was no classic it still worked on certain levels. All of which Perfect Stranger fails pathetically on. The other major issue with the film has to be the plot twist. Now this might make some people like the movie, it will make others groan and moan about how increasingly stupid the movie gets. For me it seemed, well odd, but I suppose it works. I mean I wouldn't have chosen that ending, but I suppose in the end it was kind of inevitable. Doesn't come close to redeeming the movie though. Perfect Stranger is a desperately dull movie lacking, charm, sexiness and anything remotely like a thrill. Halle Berry manages to save this from complete and utter disaster, but its still a very, very bad movie.

The only reason i can see for this movie to be released is because celebrities are in it. But, Halle Berry over-acts a choppy and shallowly developed character. I spent the whole movie waiting for the plot to really get going, but instead what i got was a whole bunch of disconnected plot points and irrelevant characters. It is supposed to be suspenseful, but mostly i just wanted it to be over. When the end came, yes, it was a surprise, but by that time I did not care about the story at all. And it was only "surprising" because the whole story is random events all loosely, very loosely connected to the end. It was almost...amateur. The story does not give enough background on most characters to evoke sympathy, emotion, or interest...ESPECIALLY Willis' character. It's a movie that is good in theory, but wasn't focused enough to be held in the same esteem as other psychological thrillers. The most developed and well acted character is really Ribisi's. His performance is noteworthy and enough to warrant the 3 out of 10.

Halle Berry in a "What were they thinking" movie that has to have been made up on the fly or cobbled together from eight other movies. The basic plot, I'll stick with that because I don't want to try to explain the real plot, has Halle Berry investigating the murder of a friend. The trail leads to Bruce Willis as the head of a PR firm who's married and has a kinky side. Possibly as bad as Catwoman this movie is a real stinker.Everyone is in a different movie, there is no sense of whats going on and as the revelations start coming and coming and coming and you begin to realize that the reason there is no sense of whats going on is that there is no plot to make sense of. The final plot twists are of the sort that make you go-"get the *#$% out of here" or "What you talking' 'bout Halle". To be fair, There's one or two tiny things that make me not sure if this is a good bad movie or a bad bad movie since it straddles the line, but its not really worth splitting hairs over so I'm leaning towards calling it a complete dirtball stinker. Avoid this one at all costs.

This movie is definitely one that you have seen before. If you watch a lot of movies you will notice the recycled plot. As I sat watching this movie in a invite only screener, I noticed in the first ten minutes that Halle Berry cannot act. Her acting was mediocre, but the actor Bruce Willis and Giovanni Ribisi saved this movie. Halle Berry is a beautiful face, but that is all she offered here. This movie had some nice twists coupled with a nice elements likened to the game Clue. I say that because you constantly go through the assumptions of who did it, and how it was performed. I am glad I got to see it for free. It is worth taking a date to, but definitely will not win any awards. The whole viewing experience makes you think about how many times will Halle Berry play this role (Gothicka). Happy Viewing

Before seeing "Perfect Stranger", I was hoping for another hidden gem like "Twisted" (2004), which was also a murder mystery with a female lead and other big names in the cast and also got bad reviews; sadly, this film isn't it. The film starts off poorly - it's a whodunit, but the victim is a character who appears in just one scene before getting bumped off, so we don't have enough time to like or even hate (as it usually happens in, say, the Agatha Christie mysteries) her; so it's harder to find a reason to care who killed her. The film improves somewhat in the middle, with a couple of tense scenes (like the one in the car with Willis suspecting Berry of being a spy, or Berry's entrance into Ribisi's "secret room"), and a few interesting (if brief) views of the net-chatting world. But then the ending comes, and it's a cheat - the perfect planning required for it is simply too far-fetched (IMDB trivia says they filmed three alternative endings with three alternative killers: the one chosen in the final cut was probably the worst). Halle Berry is GORGEOUS in this movie - I personally think this woman is getting more beautiful every year - but her acting is a bit forced, especially at her "big" moments. Bruce Willis has a couple of good scenes, but the rest of the time he pretty much sleepwalks through his role. Another problem is that both their characters are not very interesting, and yet another one is that there is no erotic heat between them, because Bruce is too old for Halle - although their age difference is only 11 years, he would even be more acceptable as her father than as her lover! In a supporting role, Giovani Ribisi is marginally more interesting than the two leads. All in all, this movie is between a 4 and a 5 out of 10, mostly rental material.

Halle Berry in a "What were they thinking" movie that has to have been made up on the fly or cobbled together from eight other movies. The basic plot, I'll stick with that because I don't want to try to explain the real plot, has Halle Berry investigating the murder of a friend. The trail leads to Bruce Willis as the head of a PR firm who's married and has a kinky side. Possibly as bad as Catwoman this movie is a real stinker.Everyone is in a different movie, there is no sense of whats going on and as the revelations start coming and coming and coming and you begin to realize that the reason there is no sense of whats going on is that there is no plot to make sense of. The final plot twists are of the sort that make you go-"get the *#$% out of here" or "What you talking' 'bout Halle". To be fair, There's one or two tiny things that make me not sure if this is a good bad movie or a bad bad movie since it straddles the line, but its not really worth splitting hairs over so I'm leaning towards calling it a complete dirtball stinker. Avoid this one at all costs.

I've walked out on two movies in my life - one was Laserblast, and now this is the second. Now I must apologize to Laserblast for holding them to too high of a standard - an industry that can release such dreck as "Perfect Stranger" means that any movie made or that will be made in the future 'til the sun explodes in a super nova will be better than this movie. What's not to absolutely hate about this movie? Well, nothing. This is the kind of movie that you find out later that all the stars had been blackmailed into being in this film. Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, among others, play odious unlikeable characters in such a way that you dislike them from the moment you first meet them until the final moments when ugly things happen but not ugly enough to satisfy your need for punishment - for indeed anyone connected to this movie should be brought up on charges for criminal misuse of talent and resources. Oh, and I really didn't like it, either.

Going into this movie I did not expect much, I was rather hesitant on handing over my cinema fee. You know what I was right, it was another typical Hollywood thriller, I did not feel suspense once throughout the LONG hour and fifty minutes it went on for. Most of the time the camera was more interested on Halle Berry's perfect figure than the actual plot of the movie. Also this has got to be a low point in Bruce Willis's career, thank god he has Die Hard 4.0 to fall back on. Halle is starting to build up a list of pathetic thrillers, Gothika and now this rubbish, don't give up your modeling career just yet........ Trust me on this one, only watch if you have nothing to do other than rent the backpage titles of your local video store.... 3 out of 10