It is not very seldom that films try to imitate Hitchcock. He is after all, one of the twentieth century's greatest motion picture directors, perhaps even the greatest. But, however, it is far too seldom that a film or a director pays homage to Hitchcock without fake tenure.
Brian De Palma didn't make a poor man's thriller when he co-wrote and directed Dressed To Kill. Instead, he made a blood-chilling, nail-biting thrill ride that would make Hitch aficionados proud.
Angie Dickinson stars as a New York woman who is trapped (so she feels) in a boring, dead-end marriage with a boring sex life. We find all of this information out from her frequent visits to a local psychiatrist (Michael Caine). She lusts for a change, and gets one in a mystery man she meets in an art museum. Not a word is spoken between the two, nor is anything implied during this scene, but De Palam wisely let the camera so its job and made an eerie but effective scene.
Soon after that fateful encounter, the two sleep together. A little later, Dickinson turns up murdered, and a high-priced call girl(Nancy Allen), a witness to the murder, is hounded by a sleazy police officer (Dennis Franz) and the killer. Dickinson's teenage whiz kid son (Keith Gordon) also manages to help Allen out, and even winds up saving her life in a chillingly terrifying scene that is very Hitchcock.
TO reveal any more would ruin the film. De Palma isn;t as good as Hitchcock, nor will he ever be. No one ever will. but this taut, suspenseful film full of shocking moments of originality and surprising plot twists (although the ending is predictable), is a worthy attempt and a beautiful tribute to the master of suspense.
Dressed To Kill
MPAA Classification: R
Rating: ***1/2 (out of four)
Running Time: 105 min.
Jason Bacon
bacon4@bellsouth.net
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