In this trite thriller, writer/director Amy Holden Jones (Indecent Proposal) continues her fascination with the dark deeds money inspires. Halle Berry is Josie Potenza, an unhappy beauty who admits to a sympathetic but psycho stranger (Peter Greene) that she sometimes wants her philandering sugar-daddy husband (Christopher McDonald) dead. Soon after, just as her marriage is on the mend, her wish comes true. Since she inherited hubby's money, Josie becomes the investigation's prime suspect -- and the target of the crazed stranger's torture and blackmail.

For all her reliance on cliché, Holden does spring one surprise: she attempts to forge a feminist perspective, with Josie learning to pack a weapon and spewing tough talk to her never-say-die stalker. But Berry's frightened Bambi eyes and inane lines make her transition from trophy wife to gun-toting heroine an implausible stretch. Long before the ludicrous, tacked-on ending, The Rich Man's Wife has spun into rote movie-of-the-week territory. At the Copley Place, the Fresh Pond, and the Circle and in the suburbs.