Perfect Stranger

PERFECT STRANGER is a fast-paced little crime mystery of a film that despite the innumerable sidebars of undeveloped information scattered throughout the script does manage to surprise the audience at the end. The movie seems to be a vehicle for the beautiful Halle Berry to show off her skills and other assets: Bruce Willis is billed as a co-star but his role is minor and unexpectedly underplayed - a nice little tour de force for the king of action flicks.

Berry plays a reporter with a man's nom de plume that allows her to uncover secrets of famous people for newsy stories. Once fired from her job for uncovering the deeds of a Senator who is promoted by her newspaper, she teams her good buddy Giovanni Ribisi, a wizard of information about the media and internet spying, and the two go after a wealthy ad executive (Bruce Willis) when the murder of one of Berry's old girlfriends stirs both her wrath and her own secret demons. The chase is on with Berry playing games of deceit backed by the skills of Ribisi. And just when the plot seems to have uncovered the murderer, then another line of story involving Ribisi and Berry explodes the audience's tracking of the crime with a rather good ending.

Berry is fine in her role as is Ribisi with his: Willis is not on the screen long enough to form an opinion, a fact that is actually rather a refreshing twist! The camera loves Berry in all her glamour and manages to turn sordid when the plot elements necessitate that. It is a fair evening's diversion and were it not for all the 'dropped ideas' that plead development, it would be a stronger thriller. Grady Harp