There's little of either to be found here.
For the most part, Foley forgets that thrillers are primarily about atmosphere and tension. But without Berry spreading her legs, it lacks a certain panache. Without a doubt, Perfect Stranger is trying to appeal to the same demographic that salivated through the trashy amusement that was Basic Instinct. In fact, the movie demands about five minutes worth of exposition to tie up all the loose ends and attempt to convince us that the identity of the killer makes sense. Based on the clues provided in the story, there's no way to predict where it's going to end up.
This is often the case with D-grade thrillers but one expects more from a major multiplex release starring Bruce Willis and Halle Berry. The ending of Perfect Stranger is a surprise because it's arbitrary.
Meanwhile, she's having hot sex with her boyfriend, Cameron (Gary Dourdan), while Miles looks on jealously. To do so, she attacks on two fronts - logging on and sending suggestive messages to ADEX and joining Harrison's company as a gofer. A computer account is full of incriminating sexy chat transcripts between Grace and "ADEX." But is ADEX Harrison? This is something Rowena must determine with the help of her sidekick, Miles (Giovanni Ribisi). At the time of her demise, Grace was having an affair with married advertising magnate Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis). Rowena (Berry) is an investigative reporter who is searching for the killer of her childhood friend, Grace (Nicki Aycox). Too bad, because that might have provided a reason for at least a few people to see Perfect Stranger. Berry keeps everything under wraps or below the camera line. (This is not, I'm sure, what director James Foley was aiming for.) Those hoping for a Swordfish moment will be disappointed. She looks great but plays such a bitch that it's easy to stop caring about her ten minutes into the film. He gets to glare a lot and throw a guy around, but that's pretty much the sum total of his performance. Bruce Willis is marking time waiting for his next opportunity to die hard. In this case, however, the lurid elements have been neutered, resulting in a production that's not much fun.īoth lead actors are clearly on hand to earn a paycheck. There are times when a movie like Perfect Stranger can achieve the status of a "guilty pleasure" - assuming there's plenty of sex and nudity to go along with the purple prose and cheap twists. What would happen if a late-night, D-grade direct-to-cable thriller excised all of the raunchily enjoyable elements and managed to attract an A-list cast? The result might be shockingly like Perfect Stranger, a movie so inane that it fails to rise to the level of "good trash." Like Hannibal Rising, this is one of those dumb thrillers where's it's tough to decide which element is worse: the direction, the editing, the acting, or the writing.
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