The new Halle Berry vehicle "Perfect Stranger" is so intent on fooling us with a last-minute "gotcha" revelation that it ignores just about everything else that matters.

Things like compelling characters and an involving narrative, for starters. Yeah, the movie tricks us. But by the time it gets around to it, we no longer care. It's a thriller without thrills.

Berry plays Rowena Price, an investigative reporter for a big New York paper who, as the film begins, has landed a huge sex expose involving a right-leaning member of Congress. Rowena's journalistic ethics are suspect - she writes under an assumed name and has no qualms about assuming a false identity in order to get inside the lawmaker's office - but if her nifty Manhattan apartment is any indication, she's well paid for her deviousness.

One day in the subway she's approached by a childhood friend, Grace (Nicki Aycox), who reveals that she has been having an affair with Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), the powerful head of the city's biggest ad agency. Now Hill has unceremoniously dumped Grace and she's looking for revenge. She wants Rowena to expose Hill in print.

When Grace is found murdered, Rowena comes up with a plan to work as a temp at Hill's agency, snoop around and if necessary dangle herself as bait in front of the predatory exec.

She's abetted in this by her sidekick Miles, a technology wiz played by Giovanni Ribisi. Miles has an unrequited case of the hots for Grace and this, combined with Ribisi's natural tendency toward skin-crawling weirdness, makes for a very uncomfortable relationship.

If about halfway through you get the feeling that "Perfect Stranger" isn't going anywhere, it's because in Todd Komarnicki and Jon Bokenkamp's script nothing is what you think it is. The whole thing is a towering house of cards, a cinematic con job.

Director James Foley has to his credit at least one fine thriller (1986's "At Close Range" with Sean Penn and Christopher Walken) and the terrific screen adaptation of David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross" from '92. But in recent years he's been stuck with forgettable drek like "The Corruptor," and "Perfect Stranger" isn't an improvement.

Some movies - "The Sting" for example - make us feel glad that we've been fooled. "Perfect Stranger" leaves us thinking of the other things we could have done with those two hours.

{M3review

'Perfect Stranger'

{M3Starring: Halle Berry, Giovanni Ribisi, Bruce Willis

Director: James Foley

Run time: 1 hour, 49 minutes

Rated: R for sexual content, nudity, some disturbing violent images and language

Starts Friday at: College Square, Crossroads 12

*1/2 (out of *****)