Perfect Stranger

A crusading reporter (Halle Berry) and her computer-wizard co-worker (Giovanni Ribisi) investigate the murder of her childhood friend, who was seeing a powerful ad executive (Bruce Willis) with a roving eye for kinky action. From the smug set-up to the final groan-inducing plot twist, Todd Komarnicki’s script (from a story by Jon Bokenkamp) is arch and posturing, replete with the kind of overheated moments that seem designed to look enticing in a preview trailer while giving the actors little to do but hunch over their computer keyboards, urgently tap-tapping away and glowering intently at their monitor screens. Berry and Willis lean aggressively on their star charisma—she shouting, he smirking—but chemistry between them is conspicuous by its absence. James Foley’s direction is limp and perfunctory.