Perfect Stranger Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Perfect Stranger Blu-ray Movie Review

A Perfectly Pointless Movie Comes to Blu-ray

Reviewed by Brandon A. DuHamel September 24, 2007

From the minds of writers Todd Komarnicki and Jon Bokenkamp and Director James Foley (Glengarry Glenn Ross) comes this supposed psychological thriller that falls way short of the thrills, and lacks any suspense.

Originally set in New Orleans, production had to be moved to New York City and the script slightly rewritten after hurricane Katrina hit during filming. The movie stars Academy Award® winner Halle Berry as Rowena “Ro” Price, an investigative reporter, Bruce Willis as Harrison Hill, an advertising executive, and Giovanni Ribisi as Miles Haley, Rowena’s tech-savvy friend and colleague.

After her story involving the sex-scandal of a U.S. Senator is squashed by the paper she works for, Rowena quits her job, but quickly finds herself going undercover at Harrison Hill’s ad agency, aided by the creepy Miles Haley, after Rowena’s friend Grace turns up dead and all clues point to Mr. Hill as the number one suspect.

Seducing 'The Boss'

What is supposed to then be a suspenseful, psychological thriller of sorts turns into 100 minutes of absolute boredom, as it is revealed that Harrison Hill is a womanizer, over, and over, and over. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. There are some mild clues thrown in here and there that maybe someone else was Grace’s killer, like, perhaps Harrison’s wife, but ultimately, the boredom that is this movie is nearly impossible to overcome. I almost nodded off twice. After these 100 minutes are up, the big pay off comes. Well, not exactly. The third act of this film has a plot twist so far-fetched and ridiculous, I was almost inspired to go out and buy a shotgun and do my best Elvis Presley imitation on the T.V. screen, but I thought it prudent not to. The final wrap up after this twist is crammed into so little time that one wonders what they were doing the rest of the movie when they certainly could have used some more action.

The saddest part to all of this is that Halle Berry and Giovanni Ribisi turn in very strong performances. Were these not completely pointless roles, they may have been worthy of Oscar™ nominations. The same cannot be said for Bruce Willis, who is supposed to be playing the part of a debonair ad executive, but comes across as a gruff action hero - surprise, surprise. This movie is such a stinker, it’s sad to see Halle even taking part in it. It makes one long for Catwoman II; because at least Catwoman was so silly it was fun to watch. Perfect Stranger, just makes one feel like death.

If you want to see a real psychological thriller, go rent something by Hitchcock, but stay far away from this drivel.

Perfect Stranger Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented on this Blu-ray disc in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio, the look of Perfect Stranger has been described by Production Designer Bill Groom and Director James Foley as "Hot Fudge Sundae", meaning a contrast of warm Earth tones with cooler, more industrial colors and textures. Here in this fine AVC video encoding they are captured in well-balanced, sharp detail, right down to Bruce Willis' heavy-handed Creamsicle makeup.

To my eyes, there were no apparent compression artifacts present, but there was a tendency for shadow detail to sometimes be lost. By no means was Perfect Stranger a grainy film, but what little grain there was, was presented sharply, naturally, and accurately.

Perfect Stranger will most likely not become a high definition demonstration disc, but it is overall a fine AVC video encoding with only a few minor flaws.

Perfect Stranger Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony has once again provided an uncompressed PCM 5.1 soundtrack on this Blu-ray release, here at 48kHz/16bit quality. Though well recorded, there's not much going on in the 5.1 mix. There's subtle use of the surrounds and not much use of the LFE to speak of, but overall balance and dialogue was clear and equalization was well done.

The ominous and often melancholic original film score by Antonio Pinto was the highlight of the mix, and was the one area where the soundtrack was allowed to breathe and show some dynamics. I appreciated it so much, that I made it a point to sit through all of the end credits so I could close my eyes and listen; it sounded good.

Though overall the soundtrack is well recorded, dialogue is always clear, and it is easy to listen to, its lack of movement and dynamics lead to an end result similar the entire movie in general, that is to say, it's boring.

Perfect Stranger Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras on this disc are paltry, and hardly worth a mention. Their one saving grace being that everything (read: a few trailers and a 'Making of' featurette) is presented in High Definition.

The brief, and scarcely informative making of featurette, Virtual Lives: The Making of Perfect Stranger, is only worth looking at for its wonderful high bit rate MPEG-2, 1.78:1, 1080p video presentation, and its focus on the always pleasant Halle Berry in the interview segments.

Subtitles
English SDH, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai

Featurette
Virtual Lives: The Making of Perfect Stranger
- presented in MPEG-2 1.78:1 1080p High Definition

Trailers
Coming to Blu-ray
Premonition
Reign Over Me
Vacancy
Ghost Rider

Perfect Stranger Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Perfect Stranger contains strong, but sadly wasted performances by Halle Berry and Giovanni Ribisi, and a miscast Bruce Willis in this far-fetched snooze fest that not only lacks any thrills or suspense, but also has a plot twist so inane, that it is an insult to one's intelligence. The uncompressed PCM 5.1 soundtrack is well recorded, but the mix lacks any movement or dynamics, outside of the excellent original film score. This title is not worth spending your money on as a purchase, but if you suffer from insomnia, you may want to drop into your local video rental store to pick it up for a viewing before bedtime and admire the fine AVC encoding, if you can stay awake long enough to do so.