Perfect Stranger

Plot synopsis:
Rowena (Halle Berry) - who goes by Row the whole movie - works at a newspaper and is working on a story about a senator (whos going to run for President). She shows up at his office pretending to be from an American Family magazine, only to surprise the senator with gay pictures of him and his former assistant. His assistant went to the paper with the pictures and the story. The senator gets really upset and throws her out.Miles (Giovanni Ribisi) is her co-worker, a computer genius and a friend. Theyve both been working on the senator story for a long time and really want it to make front-page news. They take it to their editor and he says it will be on the front-page the next day. They go out to a fancy dinner to celebrate.At dinner its obvious theyve known each other a long time. They flirt but its obvious Miles likes Row as more than a friend. She doesnt seem to notice. They have several glasses of wine and end up fairly tipsy. Suddenly their editor sits down across from them. He says that the senators assistant folded and hes unwilling to go forward with the story. Miles and Row are stunned and disappointed. Row starts arguing, asking how its possible with all the proof they have to not allow the story to go forward. The editor says that without the assistants testimony they have nothing.Row leaves and heads for the subway. As shes walking, a girl from behind her starts yelling Row! Rowena!! and running after her. Row looks back and starts walking faster and finally runs down the stairs to the subway, barely missing the doors to the train. She stands on the platform and the girl catches up to her. Unhappily she greets the girl as Grace (Nicki Aycox). Row is trying to be nice but you can tell she detests Grace. Its obvious theyve known each other a long time but Grace seems very aggressive and almost mean. Grace asks how shes doing and Row doesnt say much. Grace says shes been dating this married guy she met online and he suddenly stopped calling her. She started stalking him and got a bunch of pictures with him and other women. She said Row should check him out. She feels like shes in danger of being dealt with because this guy has had women disappear from his life before. The guys name is Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis) and hes the head of his own marketing/advertising company.The subway train comes and Row steps on board. Grace shoves a manila file into Rows hands before the doors close and says Regards to your mother. The doors close and Row seems shaken up. She goes home and looks over the pictures, not thinking much of it.The next day at the office she hears about a dead body of a woman the police found in the river. They are having a hard time identifying the body because she was so bloated from being drowned. Row gets a phone call on her cell from the coroners office asking if she knows Grace. She said yes. They ask her to come down and identify the body. Row is shocked. She cant believe Grace is dead. The police tell her the found her in the river with weights attached to her ankles so shed sink to the bottom. She was also poisoned because her stomach had a big hole in it. The poison used is called mydriatics and its used to dilate eyes. They tell Row that its an amateur job of killing and drowning the body because the weights werent even heavy enough to keep the body from floating to the surface. She identifies the body (which is the only real nudity in the movie you see a pan shot of Graces body completely nude from top to bottom but its really plastic-looking and fake because shes all swollen and gross.) After she IDs Grace, she goes to the restroom and throws up. Shes completely shaken by the experience.She goes home and calls Miles. He cant believe Grace is dead either. Apparently Row had told Miles all about her and Miles had met her a few times. Graces was Rowenas next door neighbor and best friend growing up. Miles asks Row if shes seen Grace since Grace slept with Rows boyfriend, Cameron (Gary Dourdan). Row tells Miles about the subway incident, the pictures and that Grace was dating Harrison Hill. Miles says he finds it odd that suddenly Grace is dead when she had suspicions she was in danger. Miles and Row agree that they should start investigating Harrison Hill and his company to see if they had anything to do with Graces death.First, they set up Row with a user account to the chat room Harrison uses. As theyre setting it up, she records her voice saying Miles is hot on Miles laptop, to be funny (important). She invents a name and adds herself to his friends list. Harrison logs on and they begin to chat. He asks her how shes on his friends list. She pretends to be a former employee from his company. They flirt a lot over the chat room. Row keeps fishing for information but gets nowhere.Miles logs onto the computer and hacks into the temp service that Hill Enterprises uses for office help. He gives Grace a fake name and ID and puts her on the payroll at Hill Enterprises as a new-hire temp employee. She goes to Hill Enterprises the next morning and begins to fake being an employee. There are pictures in the office of the inside of human eyes after theyre dilated. Harrisons wife did an art show with these photos and they are prominently placed throughout the office.Her first duty is to make 500 gift bags for the Victorias Secret celebration party that night. Hill Enterprises helped V.S. with a huge advertising campaign for their Very Sexy collection and it was a huge success. The girl helping her is named Josie. They quickly become office friends. Josie starts gossiping about Harrison Hill and all the women he sleeps with. Harrison Hill keeps giving Row the eye as she walks through the office.After work, Row and Miles go back to her apartment. When they get to the door, she reaches under the mat and finds her key. As she opens door, Miles says hes more of a key on the top ledge of the doorframe guy. They hang out for a bit, chatting about how frustrated they are. Row says Miles can hang out for a bit but she has to go because she has to be at the VS celebration party. She leaves. The party goes well. Harrisons wife is there keeping an eye on him. Whenever a girl flirts with him too much, Harrisons assistant grabs her and asks her to leave. His wife is obviously very jealous.Row meets up with her former boyfriend, Cameron. They enter her apartment and have sex against the wall (but they are both fully clothed theres just a lot of humping going on). The camera pans away from them and you see Miles hiding in a dark corner of her apartment.Row continues to chat with Harrison online every night, even at work when hes in his office.The next day at Hill Enterprises, Harrison starts talking to Row and flirting with her. He asks her to meet him for a drink later that night. She says shed better not since hes married. He said he doesnt care and tells her where and when. She does show up and they flirt over drinks. Nothing happens. The next day she leaves her building for work only to find Harrison with a nice car out front to pick her up. Across the street Harrisons wife is sitting in a taxi, watching.Throughout the movie, flashbacks of Row as a child are shown. Images of her father trying to come in the bathroom and give her a bath (when its obvious hes abusing her) her hiding from him, etc.Miles has a spy program he wants Row to install on Harrisons computer. She tries but he walks in on her. She covers it up, pretending she was writing him a note about meeting her that night. He seems doubtful but brushes it off. They go out that night. They go out to dinner and while Row is using the bathroom she get's a text from Miles about their plan and Hill sees this. After dinner Hill confronts Row about the text.He pulls over before she goes home and said he knows what shes doing. She looks panicked. He says shes a spy from another advertising firm. She finally says she is. He gets really pissed and yells at her, really threatening and almost violent. She freaks out and says to take her home. He drops her off.She goes over to Miles apartment. She finds his key on the doorframe ledge and lets herself in. Hes not home. She has never been there before. She walks around and hears her voice saying Miles is hot from inside a wall. She finds a door blocked by a shelf in the bathroom and opens it. Inside is a shrine Miles has made to Row. REALLY creepy stuff. Walls plastered with her photo and even a statue with her face taped to it. She looks at his computer and sees videos of Miles and Grace having sex. The screen is small but they are naked and participating in a lot of S&M. Row is horrified.Miles comes home and finds her in the room. He tries to explain but Row is completely freaked out. She gets mad and leaves.Later in her apartment Row recalls the story she was working on in the beginning of the movie involving the Senator and his affair with a man. She recalls her statement about men in power and how they get their way. This is when she decides to go to the police with the info she has on Hill to bring him down for Grace's murder. She shows the detective the chat room and while the detective looks on she gets Hill to plan a meeting. This is enough for the detectives to suspect Hill and they go forward with an arrest. Hill is placed on trial and is found guilty of Grace's murder. They found traces of Grace's blood in his car.While the verdict is being read the scene switches from Row to Miles to Hill's wife. They are all heading to the bathroom towards the mirror cabinet. We see a hand open the mirror and pull out a can which unscrews at the bottom. The person opens the can and we see a bottle of the poison used to kill Grace. As the person closes the mirror cabinet we can only speculate who it might be of the 3 - and we see it is Row! She empties out the bottle of poison into the sink and it is at this moment that Miles walks in on her. He had figured it all out, that she was the one who killed Grace.He said he knows she used Harrison Hill as a cop out because he had access to the dilation medication through his wife. He said Row was trying to frame Harrison for a murder she committed.We see a flashback of Row and Graces meeting at the subway platform. We see Row call Grace later that night and meet up with her. She poisons a drink and Grace drinks it. Row disposes of the body in the river.A flashback is shown of Rows mom catching her dad sexually abusing her (Row was probably nine years old). Rows mom gets really upset and they get into a physical fight. Her mom hits her dad with a hard object and he dies. Row and her mother bury his body outside but Grace sees from the window next door. Shes been using this against Row her whole life. Row framed Hill by planting the blood evidence in his car when he was driving her home after dinner which ended with their argument.Row tells Miles the story. Miles says hell never tell anyone but now Row has to do something for him (sex is implied). Row turns and grabs a knife and stabs Miles in the stomach. He falls to the ground. She starts throwing stuff around the kitchen to make it look like a struggle happened. She takes Miles' hand and scratches his fingernails over her neck to make it look like he tried to hurt her. She then calls the detective and says that they may have put the wrong man (Hill) in jailWhile waiting for the police to arrive Row breaks down in tears and crouches down to cuddle Miles' lifeless body. The camera then slowly pans up and out towards the window and we see a man standing in the window across the way - he had seen the whole thing.

Tags: mystery, neo noir, murder, flashback

Review:
When I realized that there was no point in following the clues and the movie simply plays to the demands of the filmmaker and which ending worked best with test audiences, it made me hate this shallow and silly excuse for a thriller even more.The film centers on an investigative journalist named Rowena (Halle Berry) who specializes in going undercover and exposing corporate and political frauds with the help of her creepy best friend and co-worker Miles (Giovanni Ribisi) who seems to have a certain unhealthy obsession with her that is painfully obvious to the audience, yet Rowena seems blissfully ignorant to.
The two women just happened to have a chance meeting in a subway shortly before Grace's murder, and she told Rowena about how she had been having an on-line affair with a powerful New York ad executive named Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis).
I watched Perfect Stranger at a preview at my local theater this past weekend, and next to the scantily clad Halle Berry, there was no reason to go watch this movie.
Bruce Willis and Halle Berry have acted much better in past, but are watchable regardless, as well as Giovanni Ribisi; suspense thriller is made bearable but eventually degenerates...
And I have to say that sitting in the theater I thought, 'Gee, it's nice to see a movie with two real live movies stars in it.' You get all kinds of weird combinations these days with stars and starlets and rap artists that it's no wonder that most movies are awful.In this case you have a story about a woman played by Halle Berry who is an investigative reporter for a major newspaper.
Now I'm purposely not including any spoilers because I personally like to know as little as possible going into a film.I think a good number of people who like movies like The Usual Suspects or Lucky Number Slevin will like something like this.
I chose this, just because it was a new movie.The story is about a journalist  played by Halle Berry, who does sting operations on rich powerful businessmen.
The surprise pack was Giovanni Ribisi  as the colleague and close friend of Halle Berry  who has a huge crush on her and manipulates Halle's effort to solve the mystery.James Foley  the director, lost the plot in the end, but leaves behind an engrossing story overall.(Stars 5.25 out of 10).
Before seeing "Perfect Stranger", I was hoping for another hidden gem like "Twisted" (2004), which was also a murder mystery with a female lead and other big names in the cast and also got bad reviews; sadly, this film isn't it.The film starts off poorly - it's a whodunit, but the victim is a character who appears in just one scene before getting bumped off, so we don't have enough time to like or even hate (as it usually happens in, say, the Agatha Christie mysteries) her; so it's harder to find a reason to care who killed her.
But then the ending comes, and it's a cheat - the perfect planning required for it is simply too far-fetched (IMDB trivia says they filmed three alternative endings with three alternative killers: the one chosen in the final cut was probably the worst).Halle Berry is GORGEOUS in this movie - I personally think this woman is getting more beautiful every year - but her acting is a bit forced, especially at her "big" moments.
With the support of her hacker friend and former colleague Miles Haley (Giovanni Ribisi), Ro is hired for a temporary work in Harrison's agency to get close to the executive and investigate his life."Perfect Stranger" has a good story, with a surprising twist; the lead cast has the names of Halle Berry, Bruce Willis and Giovanni Ribisi; unfortunately, the screenplay does not work well since it does not create an empathy of the viewer with the characters, which have dirty secrets.
This movie is just a nice easy to watch movie, if you're looking for a real bad thriller that tries to be sexy try to watch 'Basic Instinct 2' and I say try because that movie is 'that bad'.So put in perspective, 'Perfect Stranger' delivers enough to be entertaining in it's genre, it's not the best thriller ever but it sure isn't the worst, far from it.Say what you will, I enjoyed it :).
I saw with least expectations but it turned out to be good suspense thriller which holds your mind through.I don't wants to watch heavy social issue containing,powerful performances movies all the time,Halle berry does good job as lead actor so the rest of the cast.Starts up well,keeps us busy what will be next ,maintain the mood of movie ,ends with startling Climex.
Halle berry fired from the job due to her story on politician(it happens in U.S.too..)enters Bruce willis company as employee to expose him to save her friend.Not for the awards but to thriller its tight script with added feminity of Halle berry , its fun to watch..
Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, among others, play odious unlikeable characters in such a way that you dislike them from the moment you first meet them until the final moments when ugly things happen but not ugly enough to satisfy your need for punishment - for indeed anyone connected to this movie should be brought up on charges for criminal misuse of talent and resources.Oh, and I really didn't like it, either..
The trail leads to Bruce Willis as the head of a PR firm who's married and has a kinky side.Possibly as bad as Catwoman this movie is a real stinker.Everyone is in a different movie, there is no sense of whats going on and as the revelations start coming and coming and coming and you begin to realize that the reason there is no sense of whats going on is that there is no plot to make sense of.
The final plot twists are of the sort that make you go-"get the *#$% out of here" or "What you talking' 'bout Halle".To be fair, There's one or two tiny things that make me not sure if this is a good bad movie or a bad bad movie since it straddles the line, but its not really worth splitting hairs over so I'm leaning towards calling it a complete dirtball stinker.Avoid this one at all costs..
When the lovely Halle Berry and Giovanni Ribisi came to introduce 'Perfect Stranger' at an exclusive screening in Philadelphia, PA a few weeks ago, they pleaded, "Don't give away the ending, or you'll ruin the surprise for everyone else." The ending, and all that comes before it, is mindless, dismissible crap.
Going into this movie I did not expect much, I was rather hesitant on handing over my cinema fee.You know what I was right, it was another typical Hollywood thriller, I did not feel suspense once throughout the LONG hour and fifty minutes it went on for.Most of the time the camera was more interested on Halle Berry's perfect figure than the actual plot of the movie.
Also this has got to be a low point in Bruce Willis's career, thank god he has Die Hard 4.0 to fall back on.Halle is starting to build up a list of pathetic thrillers, Gothika and now this rubbish, don't give up your modeling career just yet........Trust me on this one, only watch if you have nothing to do other than rent the backpage titles of your local video store....3 out of 10.
The acting in this picture was great especially for Ribisi performance ,I think the movie would have somewhat fell flat without his humor mix into the suspense thriller.Bruce sure is looking old now ,I think the die hard movie should be a great way to leave on a positive note, unless it falters or course but he could always pull producer/director like Mel Gibson.
Halle Berry and Bruce Willis were great in this surprising good thriller.
Actually, the answer was vice versa: The movie was good with a great twist ending.Sure, some maybe call if ridiculous and preposterous but when you're being entertained, who cares?
Then there are other little stories throughout the film that don't seem that relevant, so I won't bother mentioning.I should have known that when I read the back of the cover's reviews "Halle Berry is sexy and steams up the screen", what did that have to do with the movie?
In the mean time she wants to get a decent story for the newspaper she works for and some other things need to be done.This film is supposed to be a thriller I guess.
I have noticed that a good deal of film criticism seems to have taken place before someone has even seen the film, that a hostile attitude is in place as the film begins, perhaps because of the star, perhaps the money paid, perhaps a reflection of the dismaying trend in politics to not engage, the attitude that the film has got to please in every way in a manner expected or it's bad.I mention this simply because there are a lot of things this suspense thriller is not.
Halle Berry plays a news reporter Rowena, an ingenious, courageous and sexy enough lady, who starts breathing down Harrison Hill's neck (Bruce Willis), a very wealthy and cunning owner of the advertising agency, whose greatest turn on is internet dating - the thing that got him between the legs of Rowena's childhood friend Grace (Nicki Aycox), who's found dead later on.
"Perfect Stranger" is a thriller that follows journalist Rowena (Halle Berry), with the help of her friend Miles (Giovanni Ribisi), as she attempts to solve the murder of her childhood friend.
However, no one is who they appear to be as the mystery of her friend's murder grows deeper."Perfect Stranger" was only filmed for two reasons; showing off Berry's body and for the allegedly overwhelming ending.
A pumped-up product of Hollywood's Madison Avenue mentality, the film is awash with product placement, from Reebok to Victoria's Secret, and judging from the number of over-emphasized shots of her bodily assets, Halle Berry's for sale too.Directed by con artiste James Foley, whose last film was 2003's "Confidence," "Perfect Stranger" is a film attempting to be a techno-thriller, playing on the way the internet masks identities and can host all kinds of dirty little secrets.Berry is Rowena, a reporter who lusts after news stories that dish the dirt on wealthy, corrupt men.
Berry is gorgeous and, at times, channels Sharon Stone in "Basic Instinct." Nevertheless, due to flaws in the script and Foley's heavy-handed direction, the film suffers from being over-sexualized, which pushes key scenes into embarrassingly cringe-worthy territory.Worse than that, the third act reveals that "Perfect Stranger" is not really about sex or its corrupting power.
They don't seem human.Most of the character feel empty of personalities.Even the past of Halle berry seem to be just a mediocre joke.Telling us , look here it's why she's like that.When hill beat the guy in the office , i laughed.Just proving my point.Nothing seem real.The sex scene of the movie seem to be a cheap shot from a porno movie .
Just put there to show some sex scene.I give the movie a 6 still.Because the plot is still intriguing.But the character script are just too poor.You just don't believe in them.The friend finder thing i really laughed.Portraying these peaple has sore perverted/raper etc.Or peaple using these service are unemployed etc.Or peaple like Mill are just perverted voyeur.It's just give you a bad taste in the mouth.If it's was intented for publicity it's was well done.4/10.
In trying to cramp too much into too little time, and having a schizophrenic demeanour in its narrative, Perfect Stranger tries just too damn hard to be too smart with its twists and about turns, and ended up with so many clichés (the horny husband, the rich and beautiful wife, the tech savvy friend, etc) and boring moments, that you can see things coming way before they actually happen.
The closing twenty minutes almost made me feel like I'd switched channels, which is a shame, because the build up was really smart, I enjoyed the tension, I liked the way the story was going, the eye pictures, drops etc, it was clever, then we get the rug pulled from underneath our feet.Halle Berry did a great job, Bruce Willis was also very good, in a very different role for him.
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.
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!
A tabloid-styled journalist (Halle Berry) goes undercover at an advertising agency in the hopes of proving that the boss (Bruce Willis) killed her childhood friend (Nicki Aycox) after an online love affair that became too real.
And I came here and read all the negative reviews and comments,and this is not the first time,and I can't help wondering,am i the only person on the Earth who love all this movies,because I didn't read any good comment...And when I read those negative comments I just don't feel the same about the movie,so stop,keep negative comments for yourself,and is it really important that Halle Berry already filmed movie similar to this in the past,does that make her bad actor...No...She is great and you just can't judge her.
First off Bruce Willis is second billed here, which really didn't bother me, Halle Berry gives a pretty strong performance in this movie.
Maybe if the movie contained those elements it would have been a major hit with Hallie berry fans and Bruce Willis.Watch this movie for the sole purpose of seeing how lame the plot is and how better it could have been with better elements like acting and a writing..
OK first of all people hate on this movie way to much seriously the acting was good and the idea of the plot was pretty darn interesting.It did lack some things it wasn't the worst movie ever nor the best but i still enjoyed it very much!it does get u into it but then it kinda runs off and has u looking at ur watch but then when all the good little suspense moments start coming in and u start wanting to figure out who the murder(s) is/are.Halle berry and bruce willis did good jobs and it has some funny moments and miss Halle is way sexy shes such a beaut!hehe anywho don't let others make u think that this movie sucked cuz it doesn't its good and yes it does kinda feel like a lifetime movie but a interesting one jajaj could have been a bit better but still manages to entertain and keep you interested.6.5/10.
Well, mostly watched "Perfect Stranger" because of the bright names of Bruce Willis and Halle Berry which promise success to any movie.
The clues and the suspicious elements are really bad.The movie thinks the spectator is stupid,so it uses like the last 10 minutes to explain the ridiculous and absurd ending.After winning,very deservedly,her Academy Award for Monster's Ball,Halle Berry was outlined as a brilliant actress with an excellent future.But,after winning the Academy Award,with the exception of X-Men 2 and 3,her selection of work has been pathetic.Giovanni Ribisi's performance is the only good element this film has and he gave this movie the 3 points I put to it.Bruce Willis seems he participated in this movie thinking:''What time will I go home?''.He did not put enthusiasm to his character.Perfect Stranger belongs to the worst kind of movies:boring and without any energy.I do not recommend this pathetic film..
The movie stars Halle Berry, Bruce Willis and Giovanni Ribisi.
The plot was great but the twist at the end was a little to much for me too; but not to the point at which I will give the movie a 1/2 out of 10.
Halle Berry stars with Bruce Willis and Giovanni Ribisi in "Perfect Stranger," a 2007 film directed by James Foley.Berry plays Rowena Price, a writer who goes by the name of David Shane and finds salacious stories for her newspaper.
I thought the premise of this movie sounded quite interesting so I was curious to check it out.And what I will say is that it is entertaining but what the film is telling you throughout it and what it gives you at the end is a bit flat and you didn't see it coming - because the clues didn't make sense.Halle Berry plays Rowena who works in exposing big powerful men dealing in hypocritical or corrupt images of themselves to the public.
Well, if someone wants to make a film of this type, it has to be very good and original, because this Hitchcock type of script has been already too used!.About the Movie: Halle Berry plays here Rowena, a successful journalist that like to report news where hidden facts of famous people are shown.
I'm not surprised Halle Berry would do a movie like this especially since I could care less about her anyhow,but i'm surprised that Bruce Willis would be in something this bad.It wasn't worth the money I paid to see it but if it was a free screening(I wish it was)then I guess I could say it wasn't the worst movie i've ever seen but it was disappointing.