SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

jamiemarks-1 With big A-list stars like Halle Berry and British actor Clive Owen starring in a murder mystery, which on the package seemed intriguing and suspenseful and with promises of twists and turns I was really looking forward to this, but oh dear! You would have more fun staring at the walls in your bedroom for the whole length of this film then to watch it. The acting was horrible, Halle Berry as wife Josie Potenza gives a truly dreadful performance, her worst ever. She wasn't convincing in the slightest, the principal villain Cole Wilson played by Peter Greene has to be one of the worst portrayed villains in cinematic history,he was about as frightening as a piece of fruit that just sits on the shelf waiting to be eaten.Any suspense and tension in the film, which is told in a flashback by Berry to the police who have arrested her, is none. It was so predictable when it came to the action. Director Amy Jones hasn't got a clue how to create tension in a murder mystery. Yes there are a couple of good twists, but I did see them coming just before they were revealed and I liked Clive Owen's acting as the character Jake, which is why I gave this a two star, but really the acting was so theatrical, it just had the air of a TV movie like you watch on channel four late one night! I'm not surprised by the very low rating of 5.0 on IMDb. Do yourself a favour and miss this unless your bored. It's one murder mystery that has no intrigue or tension and is just plain dull and dry like a soggy biscuit.

tsmith417 When I start talking to the characters on the screen, I know it's a bad movie. I should've turned this one off after 30 minutes but I kept watching it to see if it would get any better, which it didn't, and, not only did the ending leave me scratching my head as one poster said, but it left me dope-slapping myself for wasting so much of my time.Plot holes? Too many to count. Logic? Nowhere to be seen.A woman tells some jerk she just met in a bar that sometimes she wishes her husband was dead -- and show me one woman who hasn't said that at least once in her married life -- and just like that he says, "I'll kill him for you," and she doesn't say to herself, "Uh, could this guy be a psychopath by any chance?" and make some excuse to get the hell out of there and put as much distance as possible between them? The jerk, who later really murders her husband, threatens to tell the cops she paid him to do it BEFORE he demands that she give him $30,000. Here is where I was talking to the screen, saying, go ahead, tell them that, because there's nothing to prove it, no paper trail, no bank withdrawals, nothing.And while the guy is acting wild and crazy and making his demands for money he casually goes over to the dresser and opens the drawer and takes out a clean shirt. I might have missed something that happened before, but why does anyone keep his shirts folded in a drawer instead of hanging in the closet and how did this guy know that's where they were? And why are there dress shirts in the drawer of a vacation house to begin with? And tell me how the shirt is not hanging off him, seeing as how the husband was shorter and weighed about 50 pounds more than him? Halle Berry's character is smart enough to double-cross the guy who plotted to kill her husband, but she doesn't take the time to make sure at least some of her husband's assets are in her name. So now that he's dead, not only does she have to wait for his estate to be probated, which could take more than a year, during which time she would have no income whatsoever, but the man's whole family could now claim a share in the estate, conceivably leaving her with about ten bucks when all is said and done. I'll grant you that we don't know how large a family the man had, or if he even had a family at all, but logic dictates he would have at least a cousin or two somewhere who would definitely make a claim against a multi-million dollar estate.What I love most about murder movies is the funerals themselves. Here the man who runs a broadcasting company of all things gets killed and there are what, 22 people at the funeral? No cameras and no news teams to cover such a terrible tragedy, not even from his own company! And the killer comes up to the widow and nobody stops to ask who this man is, since he's obviously not dressed appropriately for the occasion and seems to be causing the widow to be upset and angry.The ending was stupidest of all because Halle Berry and her lover's ex-wife drive off, acting smug, when all they have is 30 grand between them to last them for who knows how long, and with their lifestyles you know it won't get them very far ... and they're saying men are idiots?I'm the real idiot, for having wasted my time on this silly movie, so learn from my mistake and watch something else.

TxMike Halle Berry, around 30 in this movie, not yet the big name she was to become, plays Josie Potenza, married to an older wealthy man after they had barely known each other. Her husband Tony is played ably by veteran Christopher McDonald. His drinking problem seems to get in the way in his marriage. However, they talk, he agrees to try to quit drinking, and they drive into the Pacific Coast wilderness to spend some secluded time together. However, Tony is called back to work and Josie stays behind to enjoy the solitude. She makes a mistake when she goes to a local bar alone, attracts the attention of a strange looking man Cole (Peter Greene) but, in the cool and wet he gives her a ride back to the cabin, apparently an OK guy.Now, I can't say anymore about the actual story without giving away some key themes. I wouldn't necessarily recommend the movie to anyone, but if you see it, much better not to know too much. Berry is nice looking, the acting is pretty much what it should be, but the story relies on some twists near the end, and when it was over I felt a bit cheated. It isn't a totally bad movie, but it isn't a very good one either.SPOILERS. Even though Josie claims she loves her husband, she is at the same time having an affair with Jake Golden (Clive Owen). When in the wild she had to rebuff advances by Cole, even shooting and grazing him on the side of the face. He ends up back at her home, and follows her husband, getting into his car at night during an ATM stop, making him drive to a park, where he chased him down and shot him multiple times. Turns out he had been hired by Jake to get rid of Tony, but it was supposed to happen in the wild. Jake was broke and this was part of his plan to get Josie and her dead husband's riches. But Josie had a plan of her own, with Jake's wife Nora, and in the final scene we see Nora and Josie going away together, having disposed of the bad guy Cole and each of their cheating husbands.

Bob-45 I would have considered "The Rich Man's Wife" a wonderfully acted and competently made, if cliché ridden, "Women in peril" chick flick, except for the last five minutes. The ending redeems the movie and makes it a "must see" mystery for those who enjoy movies such as "The Six Sense" and "Wild Things". Peter Greene takes the obnoxious, menacing villain to new levels of creepiness; and Clea Lewis dominates every one of her small scenes. I just wish the movie had used the "Wild Things" end credits technique to tie everything together a little better.WARNING: SPOILERFor those who complain of pot holes and "Berry tells the story in the first person, but scenes occur that she couldn't possibly know" is misguided. Since Berry and Lewis have concocted the entire story to kill their husbands and inherit the estates, of course the story is going to have some disjointed elements. Their dialog is meant to tell the dumb, chauvinistic cops just what they want to hear; or, at least, what they would expect from a couple of women. Most likely, Berry lured Clive Owen's character to the house and shot him. Likewise, she may have actually recruited Peter Greene herself and killed him once he was no longer useful. "If she paid Cole $30,000, where is the money?" asks the cops and DA? Obviously, Cole (Peter Greene) never had the $30,000. Berry gave it to Clea Lewis, so Berry and Lewis could live off it until the estates of their late husbands cleared probate. That might also explain how Cole got through security gates and the alarm system, to get into the house and menace Berry on two occasions; not to mention, how Cole got Berry's gun to use to kill Berry's husband.END OF SPOILERSHopefully, one day, critics and viewers will take a second look at "The Rich Man's Wife," just as they did "Vertigo."I give "The Rich Man's Wife" an "8"