Date:15/04/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/04/15/stories/2007041514680200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Tepid thriller

Perfect Stranger (English)

Cast: Halle Berry, Bruce Willis

Director: James Foley

DIRECTED BY the man who was responsible for the cult sales movie, "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1992), and starring one of the most luminescent Oscar winners and Bond babe to boot, Halle Berry, Perfect Stranger on the outside seemed to have the ingredients for the perfect movie. And when you factor in the fact that Bruce Willis, the king of the quirky film, also stars, you are convinced that a wonderful evening's entertainment was guaranteed.

Alas, like the best-laid plans of mice and men, it was not to be and what we are left with was a sad, insipid whodunit.Berry plays Rowena Price, an investigative reporter. Her friend, Grace Clayton, is brutally murdered. Rowena decides to solve the crime. Grace apparently had an affair with much married ad man Harrison Hill, (Willis). The two met in an online chat room.

That signals the entry of Rowena's creepy, tech savvy colleague Miles. All the computer stuff looks so dated as to be almost prehistoric. Rowena decides to join Hill's agency as a temp and also signs into a chat room — the plot is as tedious to write, as it was to watch!

The film is beyond predictable. Berry looks gorgeous but if the film was supposed to be the millennial Basic Instinct, then it is sorely lacking in every department including the heavy breathing one.

M.A.C.