“Please let it be good. And if it can’t be good, let it be very, very bad.” So goes the mantra of many a film critic.
“Perfect Stranger,” the new thriller starring Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, is far from perfect and, lame as it is, not quite lousy enough to pan with joy.
Berry plays Rowena, an ambitious reporter for a New York daily driven to land prize-winning scoops. As the movie opens she’s doing just that.
Todd Komarnicki’s middling, then cynical, script gives a nod to the Mark Foley page scandal, when Ro performs a gotcha moment with a New York representative who doesn’t practice the family values he preaches.
Ro, who writes under a masculine pseudonym, is abetted in her undercover muckraking by Miles, a computer geek with a barely reined-in crush on Ro.
We are to believe these colleagues make a tart but effective tag team, yet there’s little apparent fondness between them. Ro comes off as an imperious user. Miles (Giovanni Ribisi) is a soiled doormat.
When a few well-placed phone calls quash the article, Ro fumes and quits – actions that make it harder to believe she’s the paper’s irreplaceable star.
Then a childhood friend shows up with a different sort of tale for Ro to pursue: Stop the presses! Powerful exec cheats on wife.
There are at least three times when a character is saddled with imperfect dialogue. The first happens on a subway platform as Grace (Nicki Aycox), who it appears has fallen from Ro’s good graces, reveals her virtual, then real, affair with advertising virtuoso Harrison Hill. (Congrats to Victoria’s Secret and Reebok for the none-too-subtle product placement.)
Grace ends up in the morgue. Ro starts to think there’s a story after all. Because our ace reporter can’t work sources to save her life, she goes undercover at Hill’s agency.
If this sounds patently familiar, it’s because it infringes on scads of thrillers before it.
How far will Ro go in flirting with the boss to discover the truth? Will her ruse be uncovered at the cost of her life? And what about those odd flashbacks she keeps having?
You shouldn’t care.
One tic of the crammed script plunges Ro into flashbacks of scenes that occurred all of 10 minutes earlier. It then weaves in a few more dreams and memories that will reveal Ro’s internal conflicts. It’s rough history, yet Berry never convinces us that her character has a depth worth waiting for.
Indeed, “Perfect Stranger” underestimates the importance of giving us characters to root for.
Ro’s former lover Cam (Warrick Brown ) makes a dodgy return, as if we needed further proof of Ro’s lack of integrity.
When Willis’ cad is the most attractive personality onscreen, you’ve raised the emotional hurdles mighty high.
Thank goodness then for Gina, Rowena’s too chatty co-worker at H2A. Pulling off the kind of scene chewing that made Thelma Ritter so delicious in the ’50s, Clea Lewis walks away with the best dividends in a bankrupt movie.
“Sincerity is everything,” Harrison tells Ro over Hemingway Daiquiris. “Once you learn to fake that, the rest is easy.”
Directed by James Foley, who did fine, disturbing work in the late ’80s and early ’90s, “Perfect Stranger” never masters the art of sincerity.
As it unwinds, it unravels.
The above quip comes by way of comedian George Burns. With a few more improbabilities and clunking lines, the film could have been a contender for true disaster.
Then, at least, it would be laughable.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
—————————————-
A Sixth Sensation?
Bruce Willis is a star with a capital “S.” His films have racked up $2 billion-plus at the box office. His latest, “Perfect Stranger,” is out today. Here’s a look at his top five films (first figure is total domestic gross, second is opening weekend, in millions):
1. The Sixth Sense $293.5 ($26.7, 1999)
2. Armageddon $201.6 ($36.1, 1998)
3. Over the Hedge (voice) $155 ($38.5, 2006)
4. Look Who’s Talking (voice) $140.1 ($12.1, 1989)
5. Die Hard 2: Die Harder $117.5 ($21.7, 1990)
BOXOFFICEMOJO.COM
—————————————-
| “Perfect Stranger”
R for sexual content, nudity, some disturbing violent images and language|1 hour, 50 minutes|THRILLER|
Directed by James Foley; written by Todd Komarnicki; photography by Anastas Michos; starring Halle Berry, Bruce Willis, Giovanni Ribisi, Nicki Aycox, Clea Lewis, Gary Dourdan|Opens today at area theaters
