“Perfect Stranger” is perfectly awful.
As the plot of this silly, endless thriller thickens — or, rather, curdles — you’re left only to wonder: Given that Halle Berry has an Oscar and Bruce Willis has more money than God (and will have even more with the release of the umpteenth “Die Hard” sequel later this year), why in blazes would they stoop to star in this unmitigated dreck?
Seriously.
It’s hard to imagine that these two veteran stars can’t read. But how else to explain why they would sign on to this screenplay by Todd Komarnicki? He’s billed in the press kit as a “prolific writer” of what turn out to be mostly unproduced feature films and television projects. His contrived, derivative and red herring-laden “Perfect Stranger” should have met a similar fate.
It’s a story about an accomplished New York City tabloid undercover reporter — Berry as Rowena Price — who also happens to be impossibly gorgeous, designer-dressed and living in sumptuous digs that only a major Manhattan millionaire might in reality afford.
After an accidental run-in with a childhood friend who ends up dead, Rowena poses as a temp at an elite ad agency to investigate its celebrated CEO. The rich and famous Harrison Hill (Willis) was her late friend’s secret lover, a married hound dog who had unceremoniously dumped her. Harrison becomes Rowena’s chief suspect/target. Meanwhile, her smarmy research colleague at the paper, Miles (overplayed by the perennially weird Giovanni Ribisi), has more than a crush on Rowena, and his manipulative behavior becomes suspicious, as well.
Unfortunately, when the mystery behind the murder whodunit is ultimately revealed, the “surprise” resolution comes completely out of left field, lacking even the slightest hint of previous foreshadowing to justify it. Worse yet, all the faked machinations are perpetrated though a flat performance by Willis and soap opera-quality histrionics by Berry. Director James Foley certainly deserves his share of the blame for that. His once-promising career peaked more than a decade ago with Mark Walhberg’s “Fear” and a decade before that with Sean Penn’s “At Close Range.”
Given the reputations of those involved, “Perfect Stranger” has to be in the running as one of the biggest Hollywood disasters of the year so far. Only Halle Berry’s voluptuous beauty survives unscathed.
‘Perfect Stranger’
1/5 stars
Starring: Halle Berry, Bruce Willis, Giovanni Ribisi
Director: James Foley
Rated R for sexual content, nudity, some disturbing violent images and language
