Perfect Stranger

Director: James Foley Starring: Halle Berry, Bruce Willis, Giovanni Ribisi, Gary Dourdan, Nicki Aycox
Running Time: 109 min.
Rating: R

** (out of ****)

First, the good news: Halle Berry shouldn't have her Oscar revoked and Perfect Stranger is not nearly as bad as everyone's been saying. Now, the bad news: It's still pretty awful. I recently called Fracture the funniest thriller of the year. My apologies. This is. Actually this film has a lot in common with Fracture and is really isn't that much worse than it, and only slightly more ridiculous. But since that film starred Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling it seemed to have gotten a pass for its insanity. Halle Berry and Bruce Willis are easier to pick on because they're admittedly not the dramatic actors those two are and have a spottier record in picking quality scripts. I can understand the resistance to let them off the hook, but I have to be honest and admit both do just fine for what they're asked to do here. It's what they're actually asked to do that's the problem.

The movie is too silly and goofy to truly feel any genuine disdain for which is why I'm surprised it's invoked such hatred. It's like picking on the mentally challenged child in the neighborhood. This is a "sexy thriller" that isn't very sexy nor extremely thrilling, but it does have some moments. Unfortunately, they're overshadowed by the filmmakers' burning desire to pretend the movie is important and reveals life truths. If it had dove head first into its campy premise instead of taking itself so seriously we could have had a real guilty pleasure on our hands. The script is full of holes for sure but its biggest problem is that it's needlessly convoluted and talky. It goes to point Z to get from A to B. Early in the film we witness a character vomit. This is appropriate since many characters would be vomiting useless expository dialogue throughout much of the film. I was scratching my head and my eyes (out) when it arrived at its WHOPPER OF A TWIST ENDING! You'll need to take a thesis course to uncover how it got there. There's good trash and there's bad trash. Perfect Stranger probably falls somewhere right in the middle.

The film actually starts out on a somewhat intelligent note as New York City newspaper reporter Rowena Price (Berry) taunts a privileged senator with the knowledge of his gay fling and threatens to go to print with it. Unbeknownst to her, she's working for the paper that endorses him so her big story is squashed. With that start, I naively believed the movie may actually have something to it and would attempt to address issues such as abuse of power and bias in the media. I should have known better. All The President's Men this is not. This sub-plot exists so Berry can have her big drunken scene where Rowena quits her job in a blaze of glory. She then has an uncomfortable encounter with an old childhood friend, Grace (Nicki Aycox in a nails-on-chalkboard performance) who brings her up to speed on her recent affair with wealthy advertising tycoon Harrison Hill (Willis). A scene later Grace is found dead. That's right, literally a single scene later. What's worse is the movie immediately flashes back (to the previous scene!) and replays snippets of their conversation. I'm sure anyone with no attention span or severe short-term memory disorders are grateful. The autopsy finds that Grace's eyes were laced with a toxic amount of Belladonna, a drug usually reserved for women's cosmetic purposes. The result of which leaves her corpse looking like something straight out of a Romero zombie flick. I would have had my eyes sprayed with Belladonna if it meant I wouldn't have to watch some of the silly events that unfold in this film.

With the murder trail leading to the womanizing Harrison Hill, Rowena goes undercover as a temp at his ad agency to gather enough evidence to implicate him. Why she doesn't just take her suspicions to the police and let them handle it I have no idea. Possibly the most confusing development in this movie (which is really saying something) is Rowena taking on a second identity as "Veronica" in online chat rooms to pump Hill for information. Why? Isn't it enough she's going undercover at his own company? She has to take on a second uncover identity also? If she's doing one, there's absolutely no point to the other, except maybe to give us a full dose of her hipster computer geek friend Miles. He's a hacker who seemingly has access to any information Rowena wants in a matter of seconds. He also harbors a creepy crush on her, made all that much creepier by the fact he's played by Giovanni Ribisi. Not an actor known for subtlety, his most annoying tendencies have never on broader display than here. I could say his role is a supporting one, but that wouldn't be completely correct.

Ribisi not only has a lot of screen time but his performance is so memorably bizarre that his presence seems to linger long after he's exited the scene and extend into ones he's not even a part of. He seems to be entertaining himself in a one-man show of inexplicably rapid line deliveries, body twitches and facial contortions the likes of which he couldn't have possibly learned in any acting school. I heard there's a front row seat at this year's Golden Raspberry Awards with his name on it. What's scarier is as bad as the performance is, I can't legitimately claim it's inappropriate for the tone of this film. You could argue it almost kind of fits and is strangely entertaining.

Pity the poor world of advertising, which, along with news reporting, always seems to be the occupation of choice to be butchered onscreen. This may be the first time the main character has held both of those jobs during a movie, so you'd figure the chances for stupidity in the screenplay would be doubled. Surprisingly, this movie doesn't do anything too ridiculous here. Other than an unintentionally hilarious beat down of an employee in front of the entire office staff I thought this portion of the film was well handled. The biggest surprise may be that many of the scenes between Berry and Willis do contain some tension and are competently directed by James Foley (Glengarry Glen Ross, Confidence).

One scene in particular with Berry in a race against time to blindly locate the power switch on her computer is actually heart pounding. There's also more chemistry between Berry and Willis than you'd expect, or at least more than I expected. Foley, of course, takes advantage of every opportunity presented to him to have the camera ogle Berry in tight, low-cut clothing, which may actually be the highlight of this entire film. At over 40, no one could argue she doesn't look as good as ever. This isn't as bad a starring vehicle for her as you'd think as she is in nearly every scene and occasionally gets to show off some serious acting chops, but the more ridiculous the film gets (and it reaches a fever pitch toward the end) the worse she fares. Anyone would.

A making of documentary on the DVD features an interview with Berry where she talks about all the interesting qualities her character possesses and how thematically deep this story is. I'll console myself by assuming there must have been some mix up and they accidently inserted her interview about another film like, say, Monster's Ball. Someone needs to have a long talk with Berry about why she started acting in the first place and tell her she's better than crap like this. This discussion should take place privately over candlelight, with some romantic music to set the mood and…oops, I've gotten off the subject. Sorry. On the other hand, I can actually see why Bruce Willis would take this role, as it does look fun to play and, much to my surprise, I did buy him as this arrogant advertising executive (despite a distracting hairpiece). At least he appears to be having a good time and knows what he's there to do. That goes a long way when confronted with material this stupid. He escapes unscathed, which is commendable. I'm not so sure the same could be said of Berry, who has the heavier load to carry in this.

After a surprisingly engaging and well-paced second half the movie squanders all of its minimal goodwill with its SHOCKING twist ending. Shocking not because it's clever, but because it's completely arbitrary and makes no sense whatsoever. Nearly 10 minutes of flashbacks and dialogue were needed to explain it and I still couldn't tell you how everything went down. I have to admit when this big reveal came I spit out my drink and laughed hysterically. I has to be up there with some of the most ridiculous twists I've ever seen in a film. I do have to give the movie credit though for at least coming up with a big surprise, as little sense as it may have made. Unfortunately, up to this point, Foley couldn't decide whether we should take the film seriously or not. For an R rated movie there's very little in the way of violence, sex or nudity, which ends up being a real deal killer for the audience because this could have really used it. With something like this you either go all the way or you don't go at all. So no, Perfect Stranger isn't as bad as everyone's been saying it is… but is it wrong for me to wish that it was?