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He would have done more for the film if - like Hopkins - he had done far less.

PERFECT STRANGER Not so long ago, as a prelude to the coming attractions, our nation's cineplexes began running commercials before movies.

When, exactly, did they start running commercials during movies?

I'm not referring to mere product placement, which, by now, is so prevalent that we barely notice it.

I'm referring to the de facto advertisements for Victoria's Secret, Reebok, and Heineken that routinely pop up in James Foley's Perfect Stranger.

The movie itself - a bunch of high-tech, low-I.Q.

nonsense with reporter Halle Berry trying to expose Bruce Willis as a murderer - is barely worth discussing, a thriller so labored and ludicrous that it makes Fracture look like the model of dramatic restraint.

But the incessant product-name-dropping here is beyond egregious - it literally made my jaw drop.

Willis' character works (as do all high-powered movie characters) in advertising, which leads to long, pointless conversations about the merits of the items lovingly displayed before the camera, all delivered without a shred of irony; I was astonished that the end credits didn't include, " ...

and introducing Victoria's Secret as itself." Barring some clever dialogue (I especially liked Giovanni Ribisi's appraisal o...

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