By Rob. Walton

After her childhood girlfriend is murdered, super-sexy investigative reporter Rowena Price (Halle Berry) plies her undercover skills to cozy up to the prime suspect. With the complicity of her doting, computer-hacker colleague Miles (Giovanni Ribisi), Rowena lands a temp job in the chic Madison Avenue ad agency run by Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), the married, womanizing CEO her late friend was secretly dating at the time of the slaying. Armed with low-slung cocktail dresses, a pearly white smile and perfumed panty hose, Rowena quickly catches Harrison's attention and is able to get close to the volatile boss.

Director James Foley's slick and glossy thriller showcases a movie star who's never looked better on screen. But good looks only get you so far. Everything comes too easy to Rowena -- and to the audience for that matter -- for this to be an effective nail-biter. She doesn't have to work to collect evidence. In John Grisham's office thriller The Firm, by comparison, the simple act of the protagonist making stealth Xerox copies after hours made audiences hold their breath. Here, when Rowena slips into Harrison's office to jack her flash drive into his computer, it's about as tense as watching coffee percolate, simply because there's no build-up, no perceived risk. What Rowena can't acquire through sheer seduction, Miles can get for her with a few keystrokes on his laptop. Any remaining plot gaps, office gossip Gina (Clea Lewis) is happy to fill in. Sentences that begin, "I stumbled upon some information about..." are indicative of the movie's simple-minded dialogue. Perfect Stranger is like a lazy episode of Law & Order: SVU where Det. Benson I.D.s the killer because he got a parking ticket outside the crime scene.

A parade of dubious characters -- Miles, with his creepy, not-so-subtle infatuation on Rowena; Harrison's icy wife; Rowena's double-dipping ex-boyfriend -- makes us doubt that this mystery is really so cut and dry. And it's not; there are some truly unexpected plot twists. Regardless, dulled by its convenient technology, armchair psychology, weird science, hackneyed dialogue and thoroughly artificial characters, we don't care so much about the climactic surprises.