10 Huge Movie Plot Twists That Make No Sense

10. Perfect Stranger

The Twist

In the thriller Perfect Stranger, plucky reporter Rowena Price (Halle Berry) is investigating Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis) a rich advertising executive whom she believes murdered her friend Grace (Nicki Aycox) after ending their extramarital affair.

Eventually Price manages to get Hill convicted of the murder, and that's when a passable thriller goes downright bonkers. We find out that Price was the killer all along and had framed Hill to take the fall. As it happens, Graceknew that Price's mother had murdered her father and was using that information to blackmail her. Price ended Grace's life to end the blackmail.

WhyIt Doesn't Work

A good twist will shock, but if it's well written then there will usually be enough clues along the way for the eagle-eyed viewer to spot, or for a second viewing to be richer knowing what the payoff will be. There's none of that in Perfect Stranger, a movie that seemed to tack on a shocking twist in the hope it would obscure the memory of how boring everything before that had been.

It's not an exaggeration to say that there is absolutely zero indication that Berry's character is the real killer at any point. In a scene where Price is snooping around Hill's apartment and finds potential evidence linking him to the murder, she looks genuinely shocked and scared. But why would she? There's no one else around, and sheknowsthat she is the killer.

There's no Fight Club style disassociated personality at work here. Price knows what she's doing, so who is that show for? The entire movie plays it straight, no hints, no clues, no foreshadowing. The twist comes out of nowhere and does nothing except make an already terrible movie even worse.