1 Pulse

Rated R

Conceivably, one of the easiest genres to nail in Hollywood is the trashy erotic thriller, films that are so bad that they’re good.

Here’s the checklist: Sensual actors, bawdy dialogue, some raunchy trysts and a twisting plot. Mix those ingredients in a slick package, and you get the guilty pleasure of a Basic Instinct.

However, the Internet-based Perfect Stranger is an anomaly, somehow managing to neuter all the obligatory lurid elements of eroticism. Subtract the panache out of trash, and you’re left with, well, trash.

Halle Berry slinks her way through as Rowena, a top-notch investigative journalist who has recently discovered that her newspaper won’t print the volatile expose she uncovers about the publisher’s high-profile friend.

After her subsequent resignation from her newspaper, the ace reporter is led to her next startling revelation: Internet chat rooms are dangerous places.

Rowena finds out from childhood chum Grace (Aycox) that powerful advertising mogul Harrison Hill (Willis) likes to get his kicks over a broadband connection.

Unfortunately, Grace soon winds up dead, leading Rowena and her hacker sidekick Miles (Ribisi) to set up a seductive cat-and-mouse game with the compulsively philandering Harrison.

Rowena engages in a banal t’te-’-t’te with Harrison through chat rooms and office flirtation, compiling evidence to either break the case to police officers (who she has no contact with) or to write a story for the paper (which she no longer works for).

So, the kiss-or-kill premise of a trashy erotic thriller is there, but what off the checklist does Perfect Stranger accomplish?

Sensual actors: Sadly, no. Berry lacks the innate sexuality to be convincing. Willis, who’s about 10 years too old for his role, mails it in with blithe detachment.

Bawdy dialogue: Willis instant messaging, ’I rub up against you. Does that turn you on?,’ is about as rousing as an ice-cold shower.

Raunchy trysts: No, not really. And another thing, considering every character is obsessed with their firewall and computer security, you would have thought they would have had the sense not to commit every lewd act in front of open windows.

Twisting plot: There are bombastic revelations along the way, but director James Foley (Glengarry Glen Ross) plays it safe and strips Perfect Stranger of the mandatory exploitative atmosphere to make these disclosures juicy.

As the final twist is being thoroughly explained, Rowena curls into the fetal position’which is emblematic of a film too scared to be bad.