Pathetic. A pedestrian drama-suspense film with poor acting (seriously, it's now amusing to recall Halle Berry has won an Oscar) and a plot which spends most of the running time being bland and predictable before tossing out a truly bizarre twist ending which seems to believe it has a far greater emotional impact than it does. In truth, it was guffaw-inducing. Yes, guffaws. Ugh, Perfect Stranger is just... BAD. D+.

Serious question for all who went to see this. And I'm not being glib, I'm just looking for genuine feeback here. Honest curiosity. Because lots of people will head out to this.

Why did you go? What drew you to this? What were you expecting?

It just looked so dire. What's the appeal?

Awful movie. The acting is horrid across the board (Take Berry's Oscar away right now; she's the worst of the bunch). The plotting is lackadaisical. The film overall is a mess.

Grade - D

Why I saw it: I see everything and I like Willis.

Berry is really starting to enter that Cuba Gooding, Jr. zone.

I didn't find it as much of a mess as I found it to be boring. It just never picked up pace until the end, when a series of random twists and revelations surface. I did think the final twist at the end was somewhat decent, to be honest, and I guess I just didn't find it as awful as the rest of you. I don't think it was a total mess, but definitely a dull 'thriller' overall.

C

The prolem is, that sort of twist has been done countless times before. It's nothing new.

I thought this movie looked sort of interesting... heh.... guess not.

I s'pose I saw it because I'm a fan of Bruce Willis and have enjoyed films hated by critics recently (The Reaping and Stay, for example). I thought it might be entertaining.

Because basically, I see every movie that has been released in theater overhere (about 100 titles per year)..

I really don't know why, I just... have to

for the movie, C-

Oh, my goodness.

See, I expected a trashy, kind of/sort of bad thriller that would function as a guilty pleasure. There is plenty of guilty involved in Perfect Stranger, but no pleasure.

Halle Berry looks great (probably better than she ever has), but she's really phoning in her performance. Her performance isn't awful or anything, she just gives it no effort at all (the fact the movie expects us to sympathize with her humorless bitch of a character doesn't help either). Giovanni Ribisi is awkward and flat, and Bruce Willis literally does nothing in the movie but smirk and look horny.

I'll give the movie credit for having a somewhat inventive twist, but it's so telegraphed that it's impossible to be surprised by it.

Yuck. D

Eh, I like the stars, and I thought it looked good from the trailer.

Meh, it really wasn't very bad than it was just mediocre. Berry and Willis are fine, but they're clearly on hand for a paycheck. The twist was somewhat good, but otherwise, I thought this was just a mediocre thriller. C

Whenever a film has to explain it's ending for about 15 minutes, you know there wasn't either much thought put in, or that they're trying too hard. I think it's the former. And how about that closing shot with the guy peering in through the window? I left the theater laughing my ass off, and for a film that takes itself way too seriously, I'm guessing that's not they kind of response they want. That closing scene is just embarassing on many different levels. I hated the way the characters were handeled, and any attempt at being clever came off as insulting.

And like everyone else has mentioned, everyone is just phoning it in. Ribisi does seem to be somewhat interested though and attempting at something, and I think there is a genuinely interesting subplot in there about his obsession with Berry, but that's barely touched upon. Berry is flat out embarssing. In some scenes she plays her character low key. In others, she swears like there is no fucking tomorrow and throws hissy fits. What? (Spoiler) You would almost think that this would be a sign that there are two sides of her as depicted in the ending, but it's not like her character is over the top at the end. She's just crazy. She's not angry. As for Willis, it's almost like he has an extended cameo. Although he has a good chunk of screen time, he doesn't have a presence in the film whatsoever.

Ribisi is the best thing about the film, but you don't have to see or rent the film to witness that.

D

really really really bad. Ribisi is the only one who gives a decent performance. Willis has maybe 10 lines and Berry is a debacle. The "twist" is so telegraphed its painful. I read that there were 3 different endings with each character the killer............disaster

D-

Hehe anyone wanna tell me what the awful twist ending is?

Spoiler - highlight

Through really contrived and laughable circumstances, Halle Berry's character is the killer. The movie has random flashbacks to Halle's childhood past with an abusive father/stepfather, and then her mother kills the stepfather and the mom and Halle bury the body in the backyard and don't tell anyone. It turns out that Halle's "friend" who died was actually a childhood nextdoor neighbor who saw the entire thing and has been sort of blackmailing Halle all her life. After the friend hands Halle all this crap about her affair with Bruce Willis, she decides to kill the friend and successfully frames Willis for it. However, her insanely creepy stalker/assistant/friend/idiot Giovanni Ribisi discovers her secret and basically threatens to say what he knows unless she becomes his practical sex slave, so she kills him and makes it look like it was self-defense and calls the police, all "We arrested the wrong man!" Her plan will, presumably, be foiled off-screen considering a random neighbor of Halle's saw the entire situation from his window (just like when she was a kid!)

Very lame, really.

And yet for a long time they paint out her out to be trying to solve this murder? Lame is about the best way to put that.

Everyone who saw the trailer and still went to this got their just desserts.

I know none of you will learn from this experience, but I'm glad it hurt just the same.

i watched it on the internet. There was no way i would pay to see this crap

I actually thought it was entertaining in a guilty pleasure sort of way. It's obviously a bad movie, but I had a good time watching it unfold. The ending sucked though.

B-/C+

I actually had fun. Plus I got to listen to my new Sirius radio in my car so it was a win/win. So.........

I can think of several occasions (most notably, The Polar Express) where, after thinking a movie was going to be god-awful, I ended up loving it. I don't see as many movies anymore that I think might be shit, but Perfect Stranger just looked like passable entertainment. I don't put too much thought into a trailer anymore, so I went to see Perfect Stranger for what I was hoping would end up becoming a decent thriller.

It most certainly was.

Not.

Grade: D+

Just read everyone else's comments for my own thoughts. You all sum it up.

I had so much fun laughing from the ending that I can't help but give this a B-.

Well... i kinda liked it up until the twist ending.

C