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A Perfect Murder is set in New York where financial expert Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) & United Nations staff member Emily Taylor (Gwyneth Paltrow) live together as husband & wife, however it is in name only as their marriage is a loveless & cold affair. Emily has been having an affair with small time conman & artist David Shaw (Viggo Mortensen), Steven has found out about the affair & being in severe financial trouble decides to take advantage of the situation & blackmails David into murdering Emily, together they devise a perfect murder but the plan goes awry & Emily survives the attempted murder. The police become involved & one lie after another gets Steven deeper into trouble & Emily starts to suspect that he may have had something to do with her attempted murder...
Directed by Andrew Davis & based on Frederick Knotts stage play Dial M for Murder this was intended as a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock film Dial M for Murder (1954) which itself was based on the play, as a decent murder mystery suspense thriller A Perfect Murder isn't perfect but it's still a worthwhile film if you have the patience. The film follows the basic story of the Hitchcock original quite closely with a few changes, the man Emily is having an affair with & the man Steven hires to kill here are morphed into one character now rather than being separate, the police involvement is far less in A Perfect Murder & the most significant difference comes at the climax where there's no police sting & there's more of a dramatic ending involving guns. Othewise the two films are very similar with Emily killing her potential killer, Steven trying to cover things up, the police suspecting him & switched flat keys becoming a major clue & the basic motivation remains good old fashioned money. The character's are good here, Steven played by Michael Douglas is a cunning, cool & calm man who comes across as ruthless & clever, Emily doesn't feel like she has a hundred million dollars to be honest but even though she's meant to be the victim she started the whole thing off by having an affair & David the small time conman appears to be in it for the money even though the script never really makes it clear if he loved Emily or not. At almost an hour & fifty minutes I wasn't bored by it as it's fairly gripping & tense with some nice twists & turns although I could see why many might find it a bit slow & uneventful but I personally didn't have any problem getting into it as I like a good murder mystery.
Another major change between the Hitchcock version & this is that it switches the location from a posh London in the 50's to a wealthy contemporary New York, the change doesn't affect things much though. The Hitchcock original was filmed at a more innocent time so expectedly A Perfect Murder increases the profanity, the violence, the blood, the body count & there's even a tastefully done love scene. The title A Perfect Murder is actually a quote from the original Dial M for Murder. Nowhere near as staged, enclosed or limited as the original there's more back-story to the character's & more happens even though the two are basically more or less the same film.
Filmed in New York the production values are lavish & it's well made, the only thing that dates it is that old style mobile phone no-one would be seen dead using these days. The acting is excellent from a great cast, Michael Douglas is great as the scheming cold blooded husband, Gwyneth Paltrow show's just enough vulnerability to be believable & sympathetic, Viggo Mortensen plays it broadly & you never quite know whether he would prefer the money or the girl while David Suchet is wasted in a very small role.
A Perfect Murder is a really good suspense thriller with great performances & a good plot, I wouldn't say it's better than than the original Dial M for Murder but I wouldn't say it's worse either.
score 6/10
poolandrews 19 June 2010
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2266508/ |
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2-8-2020 11:04:09
