Product Details

• Actors: Halle Berry, Christopher McDonald, Peter Greene, Clive Owen, Frankie Faison
• Directors: Amy Holden Jones
• Writers: Amy Holden Jones
• Producers: Jennifer Ogden, Julie Bergman Sender, Roger Birnbaum
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Walt Disney Video
• VHS Release Date: November 4, 1997
• Run Time: 94 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304383843
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218,146 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

One of Halle Berry's first star vehicles, The Rich Man's Wife has a quirky, unearned twist for an ending, but everything else is pretty obvious. So obvious, it's possible to review it like this:

See Halle.
Halle is a wife.
See Halle's husband.
The husband is mean.
See the barfly.
Halle tells the barfly how she feels.
The barfly is not well.
The barfly kills Halle's husband.
The barfly tricks Halle.
Extort. Extort. Extort.
Halle has to run.
Halle has to fight.
Halle has to carry this movie.
Act, Halle! Act!
Halle has no help.
Plot, people! Plot!

And, no, even though it's rated R, she keeps her clothes on. -- Keith Simanton

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not a classic, but certainly entertaining, July 31, 2004

By 

Mary Chrapliwy (NJ, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rich Man's Wife (DVD)

Put together a young and beautiful wife, an older, very rich husband, the obnoxious restaurant owner who is enjoying the cheating young wife, and one completely psychotic killer. Mix all that together and you have a highly entertaining suspense film.

The killer murders the rich husband then blackmails the young wife - the police will never believe you, he says. I'll tell them you hired me to kill your husband. He tells her she needs to pay him off or she goes to jail. It certainly seems like an airtight plan. You find yourself thinking, how is she going to get herself out of this one? Then the movie takes you through hair-raising suspense until it's conclusion.

The acting in this movie wasn't all that great and the ending was fairly predictable, even with the twist at the end. Still, this was an enjoyable movie. Rent, don't buy.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gold digger's fable, November 5, 2007

By 

Amanda Richards (Georgetown, Guyana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rich Man's Wife (DVD)

This forgettable film can be summed up in four lines:

When marrying for money
Expensive clothes and cars
It's better not to bare your heart
To creepy guys in bars

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Why you should watch this movie:
1. Halle Berry
2. A very young Clive Owen

Why you should skip this movie:
1. Horrible plot
2. Holes in aforementioned horrible plot
3. You need ANOTHER reason?

Rated: 2.5 stars


Amanda Richards, November 5, 2007

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Split in two, July 1, 2004

By 

Angie (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rich Man's Wife [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"The Rich Man's Wife" has potential, it really does, but it turns out to be too much like the plot of something you'd watch on LIFETIME (a network that claims to be good for women, but continually features tortured females running from bad men.) How many times can you tell the same cliched story before it bores you to tears? The pluses in this film are Halle Berry, Clea Lewis and the cinematography. There are too many cons to list here.

The "big" plot twist (and this was right after THE USUAL SUSPECTS and a few years before plot twists became all the rage) is ludicrous after it follows ninety minutes of a flashback that is nothing more than mixed-up foreshadowing. No matter what context you place the "this is what happened" in, it still does not connect well with the ending. The ending appears to have been slapped on at the last minute. "Hey," the writers must have thought, "let's throw in a completely misplaced plot twist." Unlike MULHOLLAND DRIVE (a wonderfully complex film), the fact that this film does not make sense is due to poor writing, NOT a great abstract mind as in the case of David Lynch.

In reference to a previous reviewer who seemed disturbed that a black man (who was unjustly accused of the murder) rightfully sought justice: this aspect of the film was one of the few times it broke tradition and tried to become a meaningful film. Racial profiling, unfortunately, is something that still happens in a police department and Detective Lewis was more than justified in pointing out his colleague's racist tendencies.

Every time the film started to go somewhere that could have made it a strong film (exploring the volatie relationship of marriage, the horrible impact of racism on someone's life, infidelity) it suddenly turned back into a cheesy Lifetime movie.