Cool News
BC’s Back With Our First Review Of Halle Berry and Bruce Willis In PERFECT STRANGER!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I didn’t even know this film existed until right now.
This sounds like what William Goldman once described as “Hollywood Horseshit,” but it’s obviously still just testing. Is there any pulling this one out? Let’s see what BC has to say:
Hey guys, BC again with a look at PERFECT STRANGER (no THE to slow us down!), which had it's "first west coast showing ever!" tonight in the godforsaken town of Northridge, which is VERY north of LA.
I feel bad for the poor sods on the east coast who saw this thing already.
The story is standard thriller fare. Berry's a reporter named Ro (Row? It doesn't matter, she calls herself Veronica or Catherine throughout the film anyway). After a big story she worked "six months! SIX MONTHS!" on gets swept under the rug, she is looking for redemption. Along comes an old friend (Nicki Aycox) who has some dirt on Harrison Hill (Willis), an ad exec who somehow has celebrity status on par with Donald Trump. The friend ends up dead, so Berry goes undercover at Willis' ad agency to get to the bottom of it. She is aided by her friend Miles (Giovanni Ribisi), who is obviously infatuated with her and yet she never throws him a bone. Anyway, things happen of mild interest on occasion, but really the movie is about Ichat. Yes, it seems Willis and Berry's friend met in a chat room and then things escalated, and she wasn't the first. So Berry and Ribisi make a fake profile for her to lure Willis in, and of course she starts really falling for his "charm" (i.e. he drinks daiquiris), leading to about 20-25 min worth of scenes where they.... IM each other. Oooooh.
This is one of those movies you just watch in disbelief that someone actually wrote it. And further disbelief someone read it and said, "yes, I want to be in the Perfect Stranger business." and put up probably somewhere between 50-70 million dollars to make the goddamn thing. Oddly enough, the last time I felt that way was about the movie Taking Lives, and lo and behold, I am just learning now, same goddamn writer! Most offensive, the writer squanders every opportunity to make his story interesting. We have a movie about fake Internet profiles, and the lead suspect is an ad exec. Do they draw any parallels between the thin line of truth and fiction on the Internet/advertising? No. Instead, we have about 20 shots of people drinking Heineken, one of the firm's clients. Also, Willis has an assistant who we are repeatedly told is a lesbian. Does Berry use this to her advantage to get closer to Willis? Nope, she's just a lesbian for no reason other than to take up screen time. OK, movie.
But at least Taking Lives had some attempts at thrills, and some actual sex. This film has neither. Despite the promise of "strong sexual content" on the invite, the closest we get to nudity is on a CORPSE. And that's it. Everything else is full clothed hohummity. So for you nudity fans, stick with Monsters Ball and/or Color Of Night. There isn't even any friggin violence in the movie, save for Willis punching a guy (for reasons I couldn't follow). And then the "twist" end had a murder, but its basically offscreen. I don't want to come off as a gore/tits guy, but Christ, if you have a "thriller" with "strong sexual content" and the film has no thrills or sex, what the fuck? Are we supposed to find people talking about sex more cinematically interesting than actually having sex? In fact, if it weren't for the occasional f-word, this movie would probably have to fight to earn a PG13. Even THE NET had a few chase scenes.
The entire movie seems like those deleted scenes you see on DVDs where the director says "this wasn't a bad scene per se, but we had to cut it for time." At the end when I filled out my comment card, I had a hard time thinking of what to write for scenes I disliked, because none of the scenes had any goddamn impact. What could I write? "The scene where Berry once again calls Ribisi to hack into Willis' computer?" "The scene where Berry and Willis chat, and SAY ALOUD every goddamn thing they type?" There are some occasional stabs at being a real thriller (light investigation, some standard "uh oh he's coming stop snooping" type crap, but for the most part, the movie is just there, with absolutely nothing interesting happening.
One scene though, has to be seen to be believed. Willis catches Berry trying to break into his PC. He accuses her of doing just that, but she, on the spot, makes up this ridiculous excuse about how she was leaving him a note about some restaurants where he can order a drink he likes, because he only knew of two, but she knows of seventeen of them. Which is laughable enough, but then SHE ACTUALLY HAS THE LIST OF RESTAURANTS. And hands it to him. Seriously.
Back to the twist ending. Hilariously enough, the final 2 or 3 scenes of the film come so abruptly you'd swear that they were reshoots, and yet they are the only scenes that have any sort of merit, tho probably not in the manner intended. Spoilers ahead. First off we have a trial scene where Willis is tried and convicted of the murder. THEN we discover the real killer, who is.... BERRY! WOW! or, WHAT? Yes, it seems the dead girl had some dirt on Berry, and Berry was sick of being blackmailed, so she killed her and set up this ridiculously elaborate plot to frame Willis. She then kills Ribisi to frame him for it instead, because he figured it out. Its so retarded and contrived, it actually works as a parody of these types of movies. However, on the test card, we are told there are in fact 3 endings to the movie, and to pick which person we want to be the killer. Always a good sign when a film is on its 2nd test screening and they have three endings already shot. Way to make your film tight and stick to your ideas.
The director is James Foley, who directed Glengarry Glen Ross and the mildly enjoyable con film Confidence. I place no blame on him, or the stars, there's nothing they could have done to elevate this idiotic and boring script. Berry is OK enough as Ashley Judd. Ribisi basically plays the same sort of weird creepy guy he's played 10-20 times already, but has some good moments, especially near the end when Berry discovers how Willis comes off best because he's playing a charming, but slimy, jerk. He gets to use his (oft-forgotten) comic abilities in a few scenes, certainly delivering more laughs than his intentional comedies (such Whole Ten Yards, which incidentally had better thrills than this alleged thriller).
This is a terrible film. I didn't stay for the focus group, but apparently they didn't want people who disliked it, the guy who was sitting in front of me was asked to stay, but when they saw he didn't like it, they told him he could go home. I would have loved to hear what people said they liked about it, but alas. Maybe someone else will write a review to counter mine.
P. S. the film is from Revolution Studios, same as Brothers Solomon, where I was called a plant because I liked it. So if I'm a plant, I'm bad at it, because I wouldn't even recommend this film for a drunken mst3king night. Unless you just think I am a plant for Will Forte. In that case, I can't change your minds.
BC
-
+ Expand All
-
Don't be ridiculous!
-
I love Balki. And Cousin Larry. But seriously, I don't want to see this movie.
-
That was easily my favorite show when I was a kid. Maybe Bronson Pinchot's spot on the Surreal Life sparked interest in this masterpiece of a sit-com. If they decide to put new actor's in the same roles, I hope they at least give cameos to the originals.
-
How can you have three different endings with different killers? That would mean the whole of what happened previously is spurious to the plot. Don't think i'll be seeing this one.
-
...so, without seeing the movie before, was TAKING LIVES the only bad one. It was great until we found out that Kiefer Sutherland is NOT the bad guy. And with "we found out" I don't mean the moment, when it was revealed in the movie, I mean 20 minutes before. And don't get me started about the pregnancy-epilogue. Well, at least it had some good Jolie-humping.
-
Dammit, you beat me to the joke! Oh, I wonder how many more Balki references we'll see on this one?
-
...apparently you missed a little film masterwork called "Clue".
-
It just looks lame and pathetic. Anything that features 'virtual reality', laptops, IM, ipods, or myspace is asking to be kicked in the nuts. Hard. Take note Romero with your ass-hat myspace Zombie flick. You have been warned Sir.
-
I'm curious... can anyone pinpoint the exact moment when movie execs became so completely retarded that films like this actually get made? This sounds like the plot of some straight to DVD movie starring Dean Cain and Tara Reid or Ice-T and Alyssa Milano.
-
Are you guys being sarcastic about that being your fave show back in the day? I remember when they showed it for a while across the pond here and everyone in school used to laugh at how terrible it was.
-
Am I missing something, but surely you'd want a focus group made up of people who liked and disliked the movie so as to get a structured opinion. Select the most intelligent ones (ones that actually critique rather than 'needs more tits!!') from the audience and ask them to stay behind, regardless of their feelings toward the film. Just don't get it!
-
I love that, makes me feel like the director knows the audience is full of complete morons that cant read. Seriously, do they really think people cant think for themselves? If you dont want people constantly reading computer screens in a theatre, maybe its a bad idea to have it at all...
-
...on the wings of my dream!
Rise and FAAALLL, on the wings of my dream!
The rain and thunder. The wind and haze. I’m bound for better days. (la laaaa)
It’s my life and my dream!
Nothing’s going to stop me noooow! "
*friendswithbenefits.com* -
What is wrong with wanting 'more tits'? Hmmmm? I know I do...
-
I hope during the computer screens they "hovered" instead of actually touching the screens.
-
Especially when they're used to decide the entire point of the film. That's a part of why movies suck so much, they run everything through the Joe 6-pack prism. Using test audiences and allowing them to influence your filmmaking is the #1 example of how the whole process has become a crass money grabbing business proposition with all concept of art or originality gone.
-
It's just not possible. Berry won an Oscar for crying out loud! She won it for showing her tits in that groundbreaking movie Swordfish. And Swordfish starred John Travolta. Bruce Willis killed Travolta in Pulp Fiction. You know what that means? It means this POS movie is destined, DESTINED, to win even more Oscars than Swordfish. QED. Now where are my pills...?
-
Well? ... is it?
-
Seriously.
-
Some 80 year old studio head who's on his fifth wife going, "What's this *AOL* thing I hear my teenage son going on about?" Seriously, when it comes to tech trends, Hollywood's further behind the curve than even the New York Times Magazine, and when stuff shows up there, you know it's already over.
-
What a completely idiotic thing to say. There's probably almost as many studio execs and their money residing in Northridge as there are on the west side. "Very north of LA"..yes, like 7 minutes on the freeway. It's not some cow town above Bakersfield, you fool. Spare us the faux "insider" bullshit and stop basing your perceptions on of the world on episodes of "Entourage".
-
But if Berry won one for showing her tits then I would respect them (Oscars, not Berry) a lot more ;-)
-
what's wrong with saying everything you type? I always do that. I'm doing it now. Of course, i whisper when I'm typing something personal.
-
CTU Mole, you hit it! Where do they get the braindead mutants that sit for these things anyway? My guess is it's people that don't know the proper response to someone who approaches you while holding a clipboard is a harsh "F*** off!"
-
Try closer to an hour. Its 25 min from Valley Village (where I live) to that theater, and im 20-25 min north of LA proper. And screenings are at the worst time of the day for freeway traffic. If he was coming from downtown area, or even like, Echo Park, he probably had at least a 50 min drive.
-
Trust me, I work in one and they aren't the hip, cool places the movies make them out to be. It's just a bunch of pseudo-hipsters, wearing old-school Pumas, listening to Mad Lib and bemoaning the fact that no one will even look at their screenplay.
-
Do any of the characters in PERFECT STRANGER use Balki's famous cold medicine that made Cousin Larry sleep for a week?
-
I really feel sorry for Willis... whenever he gets a real movie, he knocks it out of the park. (Note that pretty much every review of Fast Food Nation mentions his performance.) But he's stuck doing the same old shit year after year after year. He's like a modern day Charles Bronson... a good actor trapped into an image that will carry him through countless throwaway movies until his death.
-
That was a trick question. NOTHING will ever be as good as The Last Boy Scout. Smile, you fuck.
-
RW eats the tape. I think that was Halle Berry's first movie, before she became a bitch. And she didn't win the Oscar for Swordfish, she won it for the borderline porno with Bad Santa. But that really doesn't count because that was the year all the winners were black, after Spike Lee's little tirade.
-
he'd still be driving to Northridge. And Northridge isn't "Godforsaken"... it's just one of those places that people never go. Like Pasadena. That's right, Pasadena! I'm calling your "old town" ass out! WESTSIDE! (West L.A.; anything East of Robertson Blvd is East L.A. HA!)
-
He's a pretty boring director, and really doesn't know a good story if it kicked him in the ass. The best thing he's done is Glengarry, and thats just cause Mamet's genius shines through the performances, and not because of Foley's pedestrian directing.
-
Triplefive is right. I've seen Confidence and Glengarry, and to do a dare to compare, Glengarry is great because it was a good script and the actors were solid. (Though Baldwin's balls line is pretty rediculous.) Confidecne had some nice lighting (or was that just the poster?) and pretty people, but I'll never watch it again. Even if Coldplay's "Clocks" plays at the end as the most out of place musical non sequiter ever.
I really kept trying to read this review as though it was a comedy—a new take on "Perfect Strangers"—but it wasn't even good that way. This is just lame. -
And "Last Boy Scout" was awesome!
-
I also was at last night's Northridge screening of "Perfect Stranger". I also agree that it's a bad movie. But I also have been close to a lot of the project's history, know the facts -- and you were way off base blaming the writer of "Taking Lives" for this mess.
In full disclosure, he is a friend of mine. But that has nothing to do with my point. He was hired about six years ago to write a film for Julia Roberts called "Perfect Strangers", which bears some resemblance to what we saw on the screen last night. But not much. He delivered what was, in my opinion, a very strong thriller script with nuanced, full characters, was very sexy and had a lot of great moments. It would have been a terrific role for Julia Roberts. The producer, in her infinite wisdom, decided to throw out that script and hired several different writers, eventually Todd Komarnicki (who you will notice is getting the sole screenplay credit if you check out imdb, and with good reason), who turned it into the unrecognizable mess they eventually shot with Halle Berry. A couple of months ago, I had the opportunity to re-read Jon's original draft back to back with the production draft by Komarnicki. I hope he publishes it someday, because to read those two scripts together is a classic lesson in Hollywood idiocy. Komarnicki's script had superficial people, plot holes galore, a complete lack of urgency and absolutely no soul, which you saw last night. Jon's script drew you in, had characters that crackled, poetic storytelling, great movie star moments, good suspense and some real heart to it. Reading the two side by side, all I could do was scream, "Why in the hell didn't they just shoot THIS?" Watching that film last night was, for me, like watching a bad movie version of a book I really liked.
I disagree with you about "Taking Lives"; I really liked it. But even in that film, the director, producers and another writer made many arbitrary changes to his original script which took much of the heart out of the characters (the relationship between the characters eventually played by Jolie and Hawke was much more romantic and believable on the page, and Ethan Hawke's choice to play that character as creepy and mannered was an absolutely bizarre choice; the role was intended for a suave George Clooney-type), made certain scenes make no sense and completely re-worked his original ending. Details matter. A lot.
To place no blame on the director for the mess that "Perfect Stranger" is shows a complete lack of understanding of the filmmaking process. Interpretation is everything. Casting is everything. To place no blame on the producer - who threw out a perfectly good script and spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars - to turn it into that soulless piece of junk - is beyond my comprehension. For God's sake, they were asking the audience which of three different endings they would like to see; a script is ABOUT its ending, so they clearly had no idea what film they were even making anymore. And if you hate the script, blame the guy who wrote it -- not the guy who was rewritten beyond all recognition. In Jon's script, the Julia Roberts/Halle Berry role was not the killer; she was on a mission to solve her close childhood friend's murder, and the film had a lot more in common with "Presumed Innocent" and was much more thematically infused with the subject of marital infidelity and jealousy. Komarnicki gutted the entire thing and turned it into two soulless repulsive hours of watching a killer get away with two murders. Few things piss me off more than seeing people getting blamed for something they didn't do and over which they had absolutely no control. Since you have no way of knowing all of this, I can't blame you for not having the information -- but I can blame you for pointing fingers without having all the facts. If you don't know what you're talking about, please have the decency to hold your tongue until you do. -
I believe he does, right after he blames the writer.
-
didn't win for Swordfish. The academy doesn't give awards for showing tits. She won for Monster's Ball, in which she showed much much more. Seriously, get your facts straight. You sound like an idiot.
-
Yeah it was stupid, but it entertained me. I don't get the hate it receives. Oh and Last Boyscout freaking rocked! for bad Willis films, please see Hudson Hawk or North
-
To take the statement that Berry won an Oscar for Swordfish, on a movie fan site like this seriously? I think it is you that sounds like an idiot :-P
-
Way cooler title
-
I'm feeling that's a yes.
-
Yes, it appears so. Oh well, while i'm on the subject, Isn't it weird when you watch it now, and Halle Berry basicly auditions for the role of Catwoman? "you're making me Purrrrr"(or something along that line). She was destined to play that role!
-
Don't know if you can be believed, but it all SEEMS true. I like reading about stuff like this. The facts behind the making of a horrible movie are more interesting that those of a good one. Thanks for the insight.
-
Excellent job defending yourself, erm I mean your 'friend'...
-
Some of your points are very well taken. Thought the whole idea of test screening the flix with three endings was a little lame. I hope they decide to send it straight to DVD after the release or do some miracle editing before the March/May 2007 official release so it's not another marketing/film debauchal like Catwoman (which had some elements to be a fair to decenet movie but the script and director and marketing sucked). Wonder what the reviews will be when it comes out and what flack or excuse Halle will use this time. Agree the original script was much better. Also the reviewer and other posters made no mention of the guy from CSI playing Halle's on again off again bf in the movie.
-
..fish! She won her Oscar for Catwoman of course!
-
is exactly why we need an easy way to add paragraph breaks to posts. Seriously, that wall of text just made my eyes bleed. Oh, and Taking Lives sucked hard. But I actually like Confidence.
-
We dohave an easy wayto add"paragraph breaks".
-
Another bad choice for Halle? Think when she signed on to the picture when she didn't have an agent at the time. Think she signed with CAA in March or April. Then there was some talk she signed on ICM this summer. So I really don't what's up. She can't blame her manager who I don't think always has her best interest at heart. She signed the contract. Just like she signed the contract to do those hideous Versace ads.
-
Can we see this original draft of your- i mean, HIS? Im curious to see what changed. I cant honestly believe if it was that good they would turn it into something so lifeless. usually rewrites UP the action/sex/thrills (at the expense of character and story), not just remove everything.
-
Sep 30, 2006 5:40:09 AM CDT
"Revolution Studios," Because Our Movies Are Revolting
by hostileorganismx
Let's blame Joe Roth. I looked up "Hollywood Idiocy" on Wikipedia, and it had his picture. Joe doesn't worry about scripts, he thinks Movie Stars can fix everything.
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 383 total posts 380 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 111 total posts 111 posts
- WTF HOLLYWOOD: SOLARBABIES -- 75 total posts 73 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 71 total posts 68 posts
- Does ‘SNL’ Rhyme With ‘Deschanel’?? Learn Which SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Vet Hosts After Sexy Zooey!! -- 77 total posts 55 posts
- If the Behind the Scenes Pics of the Day drops her pen, pick it up, but don’t look at her legs or else it will be on your record. -- 54 total posts 48 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 165 total posts 41 posts
- Herc’s Seen Tonight’s Return Of THE WALKING DEAD!! Discuss Also DOWNTON ABBEY, FEAR FACTOR, PAN AM, ONCE, SIMPSONS, DYNAMITE, LUCK, SHAMELESS, BAIT CAR, THE GRAMMYS And More!! Sunday Is Sweeps Day 11!! -- 41 total posts 41 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 500 total posts 35 posts
- Avid Comic Reader Hercules Does Battle With Tedium During Kevin Smith’s COMIC BOOK MEN! -- 28 total posts 28 posts