Perfect Stranger is one of those utterly anonymous titles — evocative in its own way and yet suitable enough to be applied to any number of situations. It’s also one letter removed from the TV sitcom that originated in the mid-’80s, as well as a handful of peeping-Tom-type straight-to-video erotic thrillers, and another definite article away from a Danielle Steele novel and any number of television movies. This Perfect Stranger, though, stars Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, so it’s hardly some nameless piece of cinematic junk mail with no expectation attached. No, rather, this movie is sort of like discovering that an old friend has placed you on a spam mailing list.

a Senator who’s a little too friendly with same-sex Congressional pages gets killed by her higher-ups, Rowena quits in a piquant moment of anger, and goes freelance. When a childhood friend who was having an affair with married advertising executive Harrison Hill (Willis) suddenly turns up murdered, Rowena smells her next big story, and starts sussing out the truth with a dogged determination.

Thanks to her tech-savvy associate, Miles Haley (Giovanni Ribisi), Rowena gains access to Grace’s email account, and learns that Grace was threatening to go to Hill’s wife with news of their affair. Armed with that knowledge, Rowena then goes undercover as a temp at Hill’s agency, while also concocting an online chat personality as a former office mate, an almost-paramour of Hill’s. In exposing Hill’s secrets, though, Rowena discovers some surprises about Grace, Miles — who nurses a crush on Rowena that’s blindingly apparent to or acknowledged by all but her — and her own on-again/off-again boyfriend, Cameron (Gary Dourdan), leaving her uncertain of whom to trust or what the real story is.

M. Night Shyamalan may have inadvertently ruined most mass-market thrillers when he explained his writing style, in the wake of the mega-success of 1999’s The Sixth Sense, thusly: “I just think of a twist, and then I don’t reveal it until the end.” That seems simple enough, but the manner in which that sort of backwards-thinking logic has been sluggishly applied to a seemingly increasing number of Hollywood genre pieces has resulted in some truly awkward and awful movies, including this spring’s The Number 23 and Premonition. Scripted by Todd Kormarnicki, from a story by Jon Bokenkamp, Perfect Stranger seems wholly engineered in reverse. There’s the requisite twist, all right, but it’s so derisible in the leaps of logic and escalating complexity that it requires that you’ll be less shocked, and more head-shakingly amused at the whole thing.

Housed in a regular Amray plastic case that comes with a cardboard slipcover of a heavily airbrushed Berry glancing alluringly over her left shoulder, Perfect Stranger is presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, which preserves the aspect ratio of its original theatrical presentation. English and French subtitles complement dual Dolby digital 5.1 soundtracks that adequately capture the movie’s aural design, which is actually fairly thoughtful and smartly used in a few scenes, with eerie office atmospherics (like lightly humming lights and electronics) adding a thin sheen of tension to proceedings. A gallery of preview trailers for other Sony releases is complemented by the disc’s only supplemental extra, a 12-minute making-of featurette consisting of brief interview snippets with cast and crew. To purchase the film via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) C- (Disc)