Perfect Stranger

There’s a lot of talent on the screen here, and that talent pool almost makes the film worth recommending. Almost. Director James Foley makes a stylish film that, nevertheless, is stuck in neutral due to its convoluted, implausible plot. You like this movie even less after you’ve seen it because you run the scenarios through your head and realize the whole thing was a lot of bunk. Halle Berry stars as Rowena, an investigative reporter pissed off at how powerful men can squash her heavily investigated and totally plausible stories with their checkbooks. Within the first few minutes of the movie, she’s quit her job and waiting on a train in the night. We see her having a conversation with a childhood friend about some sleazy affair with an advertising magnate (Bruce Willis), and that same girl turns up dead a few days later. Rowena takes it upon herself to investigate her friend’s murder, and the results are pretty lackluster. Some decent acting work, but it’s just a genre retread.