Movie Review for Perfect Stranger

Summary: When investigative reporter Rowena Price learns that her friend's murder might be connected to powerful ad executive Harrison Hill, she goes undercover with the help of her associate, Miles Hailey. Posing as Katherine, a 'temp' at Hill's ad agency, and Veronica, a girl Hill flirts with online, Rowena surrounds her prey from all sides, only to discover that she isn't the only one changing identities. The closer Rowena gets to finding the truth, the more we see how far people will go to protect it.

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Kevin Carr of 7M Pictures (8/0)
            The only problem is that there just isn't enough sex. Oh, there's plenty of Halle Berry... but th...

By Kam Williams of AALBC.com (8/0)
            A perfect stinker!

By Rebecca Murray of About.com (8/0)
            Even the biggest fans of Halle Berry and her beautiful body are going to be hard-pressed to find ...

By Mike McGranaghan of Aisle Seat (8/0)
            Perfect Stranger makes a fatal mistake that too many modern-day thrillers make: it so de...

By Phil Villarreal of Arizona Daily Star (8/0)
            Much of the film takes place in computer chats, with an instant-message box taking up most of the...

By Philip Martin of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (8/0)
            ... a sleazy, irritating debacle.

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Christy Lemire of Associated Press (8/0)
            Perfect Stranger is one of those movies in which nothing and no one turns out the way they origin...

By Steve Davis of Austin Chronicle (8/0)
            Even Berry's bodacious bod (the woman is blessed with some really good genes) isn't distraction e...

By Anna Smith of BBC (8/0)
            There is entertainment to be had here, but it's mostly at the expense of the film's rambling, inc...

By Ty Burr of Boston Globe (8/0)
            A laughably overheated thriller from the once promising James Foley.

By Fred Topel of Can Magazine (8/0)
            They're playing it too intense. This isn't that serious. It's just a murder mystery with a little...

By Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune (8/0)
            Rumor has it director James Foley shot three different solutions...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Peter Rainer of Christian Science Monitor (8/0)
            A great thriller should be the model of simplicity. Perfect Stranger, like so many other thriller...

By Lisa Ann Cockrel of Christianity Today (8/0)
            A typical episode of Law and Order is less ridden with cliché (which is saying something, given t...

By Tom Charity of CNN.com (7/0)
            This one's DOA.

By Mark Palermo of Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia) (8/0)
             It's a movie that exists to showcase an actor more than it exists to be a movie.

By Cole Smithey of ColeSmithey.com (8/0)
            Boring suspense thriller made modestly bearable by Halle Berry's measured performance. The "surpr...

By Matt Brunson of Creative Loafing (8/0)
            This might be the first film in history in which product placement (in this case, Victoria's Secr...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Garth Franklin of Dark Horizons (8/0)
            Loses its point about balancing different identities through the increasingly ludicrous twists an...

By Boo Allen of Denton Record Chronicle (TX) (8/0)
            Complex and convoluted, to say the least.

By Robert Denerstein of Denver Rocky Mountain News (8/0)
            Perfect Stranger soon begins to look like another setback for Berry.

By Alex Markerson of E! Online (8/0)
            An early contender for year-end Worst Everything awards.

By Dan Lybarger of eFilmCritic.com (8/0)
            It's difficult to get involved in romantic situations where neither partner can lift their finger...

By Erik Childress of eFilmCritic.com (8/0)
            A better ending would have Foley realizing that Todd Komarnicki is really the pen name of Ravadem...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Emanuel Levy of EmanuelLevy.Com (8/0)
            What begins as an elegant techno thriller quickly devolves into a trashy preposterously-plotted f...

By Dan Jolin of Empire Magazine (8/0)
            A twist-burdened techno-thriller that would be by-the-numbers if it could count.

By Vince Koehler of Entertainment Spectrum (8/0)
            Early on I found that A Prefect Stranger was far from perfect.

By Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly (8/0)
            ...conceived by people motivated entirely by product placement...

By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (8/0)
            What's next? 'Growing Pain'? 'Family Tie'? Any of those would probably be better (though not funn...

By Daniel Eagan of Film Journal International (8/0)
            Fine up to a point.

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Michael Ferraro of Film Threat (8/0)
            Screenwriters Todd Komarnicki and Jon Bokenkamp provide a script with enough foreseeable twists a...

By Jesse Hassenger of filmcritic.com (8/0)
            This kind of adult entertainment will have parents pining to take their kids to movies again.

By Victoria Alexander of FilmsInReview.com (8/0)
            Starring Victoria’s Secret and Reebok as well as Halle Berry in her first mainstream hit in years...

By Brent Simon of FilmStew.com (8/0)
            Evincing a style that might best be described as deliciously retarded, it's sort of like discover...

By Rick Groen of Globe and Mail (8/0)
            One of those formulaic thrillers loaded with a whole lot more plot than common sense.

By Eric Lurio of Greenwich Village Gazette (8/0)
            I'm surprised that the red herring isn't extinct yet. It's almost as if the makers of this film f...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Peter Canavese of Groucho Reviews (8/0)
            By the time the big finish rolls around, you'll be too jaded-too worn-down by the endless, pointl...

By Peter Bradshaw of Guardian [UK] (8/0)
            Instead of eroticism, there is tacky sub-porn; instead of twists, there are knotty plot problems ...

By Michael Rechtshaffen of Hollywood Reporter (8/0)
            ...would have been on the direct-to-DVD fast track had it not been for the names Halle Berry and ...

By Amy Biancolli of Houston Chronicle (8/0)
            Perfect Stranger isn't great art by any stretch, or even art by any stretch, but it is perfectly ...

By Gary Brown of Houston Community Newspapers (8/0)
            The story introduces clever twists throughout that make no sense and the ludicrous ending leaves ...

By Stax of IGN Movies (7/0)
            While Perfect Stranger had its moments and wisely made its characters less than perfect, it was a...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Steve Rhodes of Internet Reviews (8/0)
            Halle Berry is off-the-scale bad ... [but] almost as bad as Berry's acting is the capricious and ...

By Liz Braun of Jam! Movies (8/0)
            A film about secrets and lies, not to mention overacting and poor casting choices.

By Bob Bloom of Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN) (8/0)
            ... An insipid potboiler that strains to be some sort of sexual thriller, but leaves you cold and...

By Andrea Chase of Killer Movie Reviews (8/0)
            the twists flail along one after another until enough people have been incarcerated, incriminated...

By Prairie Miller of Long Island Press (8/0)
            A chat 'n cheat Internet thriller about the potential fatal cyber-attraction of online flirting, ...

By Andy Klein of Los Angeles CityBeat (8/0)
            Amid all the dreck that has come out in the last few years, it's hard to think of a title that ap...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Mark Dujsik of Mark Reviews Movies (8/0)
            Tedious on just about every level.

By Pete Hammond of Maxim (8/0)
            A not-so-perfect 'sexual thriller' that is short on thrills and any semblance of logic.

By Matt Pais of Metromix.com (8/0)
            You won't react to any of the sleaze--like going to a strip club right after taking a knee to the...

By Cathy Jakicic of Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (8/0)
            What's really irritating about Perfect Stranger is not how bad it is, but how close it came to be...

By Mark Ramsey of MovieJuice! (8/0)
            At this stage in his career Bruce Willis's hair is evacuating his scalp as if his head struck an ...

By Lou Lumenick of New York Post (8/0)
            Willis seems alternately bored and on the verge of rolling his eyes...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Stephen Holden of New York Times (8/0)
            Ms. Berry, as always, looks great but fails to project the innate sensuality you expect to accomp...

By Michael A. Smith of Nolan's Pop Culture Review (8/0)
            ...an ideal film for suspense audiences.

By Brian Orndorf of OhmyNews.com (8/0)
            If anyone, anywhere understands a single frame of this turkey, please feel free to e-mail me. I c...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (8/0)
            Perfectly awful...[a] luridly trashy whodunit that quickly degenerates into an appalling whydidth...

By Tasha Robinson of Onion AV Club (8/0)
            A tangled mess.

By Cynthia Fuchs of PopMatters (8/0)
            While it begins dully enough for an investigative thriller, Perfect Stranger quickly skids off in...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Linda Cook of Quad City Times (Davenport, IA) (8/0)
            Let's say you have this beautiful blue Tiffany's box. And you throw in a week-old banana peel, an...

By Mark Pfeiffer of Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema (8/0)
            Perfect Stranger is a perfectly mediocre thriller until the spectacularly stupid ending arrives.

By Timothy Knight of Reel.com (8/0)
            More silly than suspenseful, this sleekly produced, high gloss piece of trash isn't quite in the ...

By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (8/0)
            ...one of those dumb thrillers where's it's tough to decide which element is worse: the direction...

By Diana Saenger of ReviewExpress.com (8/0)
            With its far-fetched endeavors and piling on the twists so high it's no longer an executable maze...

By Jim Lane of Sacramento News & Review (8/0)
            ...limp and perfunctory.

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Sean Means of Salt Lake Tribune (8/0)
            The script overloads on so many reversals and red herrings that it implicates three more suspects...

By Larry Ratliff of San Antonio Express-News (8/0)
            Hear ye, hear ye. Films don't always have to be revolutionary slice-of-life cinematic art. Someti...

By Jean Lowerison of San Diego Metropolitan (8/0)
            Deep, man.

By Arthur Salm of San Diego Union-Tribune (8/0)
            A Halle Berry-Bruce Willis vehicle fresh as a Commodore 64.

By Mick LaSalle of San Francisco Chronicle (8/0)
            A competent and fairly satisfying thriller, but Berry owns the picture.

By Eric Melin of Scene-Stealers.com (8/0)
            Perfect Stranger is an offensively slick and soulless piece of Hollywwod crap. A movie filled wit...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Gina Carbone of Seacoast Newspapers (NH/Maine) (8/0)
            (Giovanni Ribisi) throws himself into every part like each is the opening night of Hamlet on Broa...

By Sean McBride of Sean the Movie Guy (8/0)
            bad script and acting make Perfect Strangers,/i> far from perfect.

By William Arnold of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (8/0)
            ...cliched, mostly routine and never especially satisfying. But it has a highly watchable perform...

By Moira MacDonald of Seattle Times (8/0)
            Reportedly, several endings were filmed; perhaps some of them make more sense than this one.

By Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall (8/0)
            The ridiculously convoluted plot is even fairly good fun to follow, right up to the genuinely sur...

By Keith Uhlich of Slant Magazine (8/0)
            As vacuous, white noise entertainments go, this is one of the finest.

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Angela Baldassarre of Sympatico.ca (8/0)
            With its sexual innuendos, red herrings tossed left and right, and illogic floating aimlessly, "P...

By Dustin Putman of TheMovieBoy.com (8/0)
            Straddles the line between intrigue and blandness until it decides it's had enough and just sort ...

By Frank Ochieng of TheWorldJournal.com (8/0)
            Relentlessly cheesy, exhaustive and about as stimulating as a cold medicine tablet...In short, ta...

By Ben Kenigsberg of Time Out (7/0)
            The movie shows that the only thing worse than a generically screwy thriller is one with a select...

By Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York (8/0)
            Some films are marred by absurd endings; this dire journo-thriller is like one big mar.

By Ken Fox of TV Guide's Movie Guide (8/0)
            Even when the plot spins its wheels while waiting to reveal itself, there's still plenty of atmos...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Brian Tallerico of UnderGround Online (8/0)
            The only reason this movie might not win any Razzies next year is because no one will remember it...

By Urban Cinefile Critics of Urban Cinefile (8/0)
            As far as Hollywood thrillers go, Perfect Stranger starts well with an interesting melee of chara...

By Enrique Buchichio of Uruguay Total (8/0)
            Un thriller más bien mediocre, inverosímil y rebuscado que pretende sorprender al espectador con ...

By Claudia Puig of USA Today (8/0)
            Imagine one of the least engrossing episodes of the various CSIs that fill the airwaves. Perf...

By John Anderson of Variety (8/0)
            Pink is the new black, 50 is the new 30 and, at the movies, confusion is the new suspense.

By Matthew Turner of ViewLondon (8/0)
            Watchable but ultimately frustrating thriller due to its unsympathetic characters, a dodgy script...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Willie Waffle of WaffleMovies.com (8/0)
            You don't see this ending coming because it is absurd, ridiculous, moronic, preposterous, ludicro...

By Stephen Hunter of Washington Post (7/0)
            Despite the presence of the luminous Berry, Perfect Stranger is really just another thriller, utt...

By Daniel M. Kimmel of Worcester Telegram & Gazette (8/0)
            ...one of those annoying mysteries where you stick it out to the end just to see the solution.

By Susan Granger of www.susangranger.com (8/0)
            Convoluted moral ambiguity can be very unsatisfying in this techno-thriller.

By John Beifuss of Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) (3/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            An artifact from an alternate universe where Halle Berry and Bruce Willis star in 'Basic Instinct...

By Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) of St. Paul Pioneer Press (4/5) Login Required (Login Required)
            Stranger isn't as bold as Basic Instinct, which was all about goofing on what voyeurs moviegoers ...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Christopher Smith of Bangor Daily News (Maine) (7/1) No reference
            Although the movie makes a case for its ending, taking you by the hand and walking you through th...

By Annlee Ellingson of Boxoffice Magazine (4/4) No reference
            A B movie with a bland title, histrionic acting and a ridiculous twist ending.

By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (7/1) No reference
            The convoluted resolution to the murder mystery suggests the filmmakers were simply making it up ...

By Scott Weinberg of FEARnet (7/1) No reference
            A homogenized and entirely pre-packaged "thriller" that doesn't even bother doling out any "thril...

By Jeffrey Lyles of Gazette (MD) (7/1) No reference
            one of those films that looks like it has a bad premise and completely lives up to the 'hype.'

By James Sanford of Kalamazoo Gazette (7/1) No reference
            Slick, silly and sometimes amusing in a trashy sort of way... Although it constantly promises ero...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Robert W. Butler of Kansas City Star (3/5) No reference
            Perfect Stranger is so intent on fooling us with a last-minute 'gotcha' revelation that it ignore...

By Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly (7/1) No reference
            This is exactly the kind of movie that Ashley Judd would have starred in five years ago, only Jud...

By Glenn Whipp of Los Angeles Daily News (7/1) No reference
            A psychological thriller in which both the psychology and the thrills are in short supply.

By Nell Minow of Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies (7/1) No reference
            In the Ashley Judd role we have Halle Berry, whose post-Oscar choices have included the notorious...

By Stephen Holden of New York Times (6/1) No reference
            Even after it lurches from the far-fetched into the preposterous, Perfect Stranger leaves a clamm...

By M.E. Russell of Oregonian (7/1) No reference
            The weak mystery story massages you into indifference, then tries to clock you with one fungo bat...

                         Reviews of Perfect Stranger
By Gary Thompson of Philadelphia Daily News (7/1) No reference
            There's a good thriller to be made one day about the way the Internet both reveals and disguises ...

By Carla Meyer of Sacramento Bee (7/1) No reference
            Willis and Berry's joint star power makes their exchanges at least moderately interesting. But th...

By Phoebe Flowers of South Florida Sun-Sentinel (5/3) No reference
            Perfect Stranger is Halle Berry's latest descent into career purgatory.

By Harvey S. Karten of Compuserve (7/1) Not Reachable
            Halle Berry's strong performance and a cool twist overcomes conventional plot

Movie Distributors
Sony Pictures Releasing

Production Companies
Red Om Films

Movie Studios
Revolution Studios