Dir.
James Foley, US, 2007, 109 mins
Cast: Halle Berry, Bruce Willis, Giovanni Ribisi, Gary Dourdan
Review by Matthew Rodgers
Cast your mind back
to 2001 and an electrifying performance in Monsters Ball
from Halle Berry that would subsequently lead to the first
ever Academy Award for an African-American female in a
leading role. If it seems a distant memory to you then
imagine how the actress feels because she has built on
this deserved success with Catwoman, Gothika, and arguably
the worst Bond movie ever Die Another Day. If it's any
comfort to Berry then she is in the company of Bruce Willis,
Giovanni Ribisi and director James Foley who should all
hang their heads in shame for the part they have played
in making the most “unthrilling thriller” in
recent memory.
Perfect Stranger wants to be a sex fuelled twister of Hitchcock
proportions, but where the master based a complete film on
the premise of being able to see through peoples' windows
with Rear Window, Foley's movie is the sort of lazy potboiler
that needs those windows conveniently left open as a cheap
plot device for people to see the goings on of the muddled
plot.
For what it's worth the story is about hiding secrets, a
notion that reporter Rowena Price (Berry) builds her life
on by uncovering scandals for the paper with the assistance
of her geeky associate Miles (Ribisi). The line between professional
and personal life is blurred when her childhood friend, who
was having an affair with powerful advertising executive
Harrison Hill (Willis) turns up murdered. To get close to
the truth she must also get close to Hill. Sound exciting?
It's not!
On this showing it's hard to imagine
that director Foley was the man responsible for bringing
David Mamet's superb Glengarry Glen Ross to the screen
in 1992. An inventive “Fincher-esque” opening
shot aside as the camera pulls back from inside a retina,
the remainder of the film is a sterile bore that relies on
random characters as catalysts to pop-up, spout exposition,
and then disappear. I all leads towards a ridiculous denouement
twist that will have you laughing all the way to the exits.
The rumour mill suggested that the makers filmed three different
endings to the movie; if that is the case then the two on
the editing suite floor must have been really bad.
The cast are uniformly bland. Berry's
ineptitude is matched by Willis' “I'm cashing a pay cheque” performance
and the lack of chemistry between them helps to neutralise
any of the required tension that has been prevalent in making
similarly themed movies such as Basic Instinct, and to a
lesser extent Disclosure a success.
As a child you are told not to go
near strangers, as a movie going adult in this world of £8.00
a ticket you should continue to live by that adage and
never go near Perfect Stranger. Awful. |
