I went into Perfect Stranger with a sense of glee because clearly it was going to be a disaster. The disaster was foretold in the trailer, many things in this industry are poorly marketed, but Perfect Stranger set a new bar there. A cheesy voice-over and the audience laughing at the supposed thriller about a month ago were proof that a) we were in for something special and b) whoever financed this poor little bastard should’ve used more of their brain. So yeah, I entered gleefully.
That smirk was soon wiped off my face as it became apparent just how poor this experience was to be. The problem was one of ambition, Perfect Stranger didn’t strive to be anything of note, not a good B movie, not a good thriller, not a good looking film, nada. Instead they threw a bunch of themes out and then wrapped them around abysmal dialogue and acting. So while I wanted to laugh at how pitiful Perfect Stranger was I couldn’t – because I the lifeforce was being sucked right out of my body.
If you want to know the sort of movie this is you need look no further than the “go-to” shot for director James Foley. Anytime things got a little boring on screen (which was often) he’d just pan his way down to Halle’s breasts or ass. It was kind of like a dog that pees on a rug and then looks up at you with the sad eyes. “Hey bud,” it seemed to say “I’ve done something bad but I’m trying to make the best of the situation.” Then, in my dog analogy version he’d bust out a sweet picture of Berry getting thrown against a wall for a bit of pleasant sexual congress to distract you from the urine. Man, that would be one hell of a dog.
There is a scene (the wall throwing one I just mentioned) where Halle Berry actually says “You like that?” in a breathy voice to the guy who is pawing her. Really? That’s the best the team could come up with? Even just going with the sex scene, alone, without dialogue, would have been far less silly. Another great example of the dialogue being farmed out to Mrs. Cooper’s sixth grade writing class is the following brilliant utterance by the main character:
Halle Berry: All it takes to commit a murder is the right ingredients at the right time.
Someone write that down, I don’t want all of this knowledge to go to waste.
She states this as if it’s some genius idea, and thankfully the movie actually goes back to that quote as a realistic plot point. There are also about six flashbacks, the very epitome of lazy writing and directing. One of the flashbacks happens about four minutes in and it’s of a scene that happened two minutes before.
The logic flaws in this thing are through the roof too. Bruce Willis alternates from a diabolical and brilliant C.E.O. to a bumbling idiot and back again throughout the entire film. People hack into email accounts and networks like it’s a four second chore. Ribisi shows up somewhere, faking that he’s an I.T. guy, and everyone pretty much just assumes he is. The fact that they’ve never seen him, he doesn’t have a badge, and that they don’t have an I.T. guy of their own is glossed over. Whatever, some random guy just showed up, and he wants to work on the bosses’ computer. This might have worked back when Sneakers was a movie but at this point most people understand that there are humans out there who know computers. And usually those humans act in some official capacity. Every once in awhile you even know that human.
So see the movie! No, I’m completely serious. Get a beer (or six) with a friend before and really laugh your way through this. I was still hanging on to my brain, my mistake, but I think if you head in there incapacitated this could turn out to be the movie of the year. Here’s some sage advice for you: all it takes to have fun at the movies is the right ingredients at the right time.
