Movie Review: Perfect Stranger

(andPOP) - Perhaps I took too many sociology courses in university, or maybe it's just the way movies are going these days, but I found Perfect Stranger to be packed with blatant product placements to the point of distraction. If they weren't attending a fashion show sponsored by a certain lingerie company or typing away on their clearly identifiable laptops, the characters were talking on their cellphones, the brands blatantly obvious.

(Writer's note: I think I just included product placements in this review.)

(Editor's Note: Nope, I took them out.)

Perhaps the producers had to somehow offset the cost of getting Bruce Willis and Halle Berry to sign on to such a mediocre film.

One would think that a thriller with Willis, or any movie that puts Berry on the backdrop of New York City, would be great. And at times it was quite good. There were moments that made you think, plot twists that made you speculate, and of course the ending you didn't see coming. And there were the shots that any (especially male) viewer will notice right away– the gratuitous sexual shots of Halle Berry. Although there is no nudity, (maybe she thinks she has done enough of that with Swordfish and Monster's Ball), there are definitely shots of her body that are really unnecessary to the plot. Not that I'm complaining, I just think she and the movie would both have a little more credibility with more subtle ways of presenting her body on screen than a zoom-in when she bends over. We all know how hot she is without that, and it just makes you wonder if that's why the producers chose Berry to play the part.

Bruce Willis plays the villain of sorts, although he's really not that creepy. He plays the womanizer card pretty well, but under that, there's not much depth there. It's a shame because the role he plays could really be creepier with some nuances that Willis just doesn't present.

The one great job that the casting directors did was with the character of Miles, Giovanni Ribisi's character. He is funny when he needs to be, creepy when he needs to be, even threatening at times– which is a big accomplishment when you're up against men and women who are noticeably taller than you. (Ribisi's a little over the 5-foot mark.)

This film is kind of a Sixth Sense meets The Net. But unlike the effective twist at the end of The Sixth Sense, the ending of Perfect Stranger is a twist that pushes the limits of reasonable believability. Without spoiling it, the thing that this film really relies on is its twist ending. The problem is that a good twist should leave you guessing to the last second (which this does pretty successfully) but should also make you think "ohhhh" not "huh?" Not that it's confusing; just really outlandish.

A decent date movie, but a pretty mediocre attempt at portraying the intended action/suspense vibe overall.