A PERFECT MURDER (1998)
A Film Review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1999 Ted Prigge
Director: Andrew Davis
Writer: Patrick Smith Kelly (based on the play "Dial M For Murder" by Frederick Knott)
Starring: Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Viggo Mortensen, David Suchet, Sarita Choudhury
"A Perfect Murder" is, of course, lifted from "Dial M For Murder," the play that was later transformed into a terrific Hitchcock movie starring Ray Milland and Grace Kelly, thus this film belongs in the elite sub-sub-genre of films known as Hitch Remakes. Hitchcock is commonly referred to as the Master of Suspense, and rightly so, but he was a quaint director and liked to deal more with character development and set pieces rather than dump thin characters in a silly plot - he made his stories believable and involving by major use of directorial tricks and the like, but never corrupted his films. And his fims were his own; no one has ever been able to immitate his filmmaking abilities because he had such a gentle, unique touch when it came to movies. Why directors are so arrogant to think they can imitate him is beyond me (Gus Van Sant, that was directed towards you), especially since thrillers just aren't made like that these days, and that's why I'm just a little more open-minded towards Andrew Davis for making "A Perfect Murder" almost nothing like the original. The plot - a millionaire hires an assasin to kill his cheating wife - is the same, more or less, and the (attempted) assasination involves a distracting (for her) phone call.
But that, refreshingly, is where the similarities end. Why refreshing? Like an adaptation of a novel, why can't remakes be exactly the same, changing as little as possible? Or at least you'd probably think that was my thinking, but alas, that isn't as of now. Over the summer, just hearing the fact that the lover is hired to kill her drove me nuts; nowadays, after hearing the spectacle de crap that was the "Psycho" shot-for-shot remake (to be fair, though, I still haven't seen it), I've had a change of heart, basically because if a film (or an adaptation of a novel) is exactly the same, why should I watch that and not the original, which is the authentic one? Well, "A Perfect Murder" changes a whole lot from the original play and subsequent film: the assasin is changed, as I said; it takes place all over the city, instead of mostly inside an apartment; it does immensely less with the detective (David Suchet, limited to merely being a sporadic visitor), involving the characters more; and the ending is changed incessantly, as well as other smaller details (the wife is given a friend and a UN job, etc.).
On paper, it looks pretty good: it makes it more of a morality play, dealing with the villainy and evil of each of the characters, at least in some way. Not only does the husband wreak evil-incarnate, but the boyfriend is given a twisted other-side, and the wife even gets to do her own evilness (at least it appears so in an unused, alternate ending I was priveleged to see). Some not bad ideas, here, and the ingredients for a twisted little thriller. Alas, it isn't really so. While there is a lot to like about "A Perfect Murder," mostly of what's above, it's an overall disappointing and run-of-the-mill thriller, not too suprising as it comes to us courtesy of Andrew Davis, who, yes, directed the terrific "The Fugitive" a couple years back, but if you also remember has directed a cheapo Steven Seagal movie or two (well, I almost liked "Under Siege," but "Above the Law" blew and you know it), as well as a couple other disappointments (do you even remember "Steal Big, Steal Little?"). Sure, Michael Douglas gives another great, chilling performance, the kind he's best known for (read: George Gekko), adding mounts upon mounts of tension into such simple scenes of saying hello to his wife after a day at work. And he's our protagonist, thankfully, ensuring that we'll be front row for some Machiavellian instances of gusto.
But instead of being truly twisted, "A Perfect Murder" tosses him into a series of twists and turns that slowly become so manufactured and questionable that the film soon loses all credibility and descends into yet another generic thriller that Hitchcock would have never made without a full frontal labotomy. At first, the first big twist, concerning the lover (Viggo Mortensen, so marble-mouthed that the film should require subtitles when he speaks) works, and it continues to work throughout, but the implausibility gear kicks in after awhile, and a twist towards the end is so cliched and questionable that I couldn't believe the surviving character was so cool about it afterwards. He loses his edge along the way, as well, occasionally treated like a Richard III-esque anti-hero, as we follow him along with his numerous schemes to be the surviving character in this charade, and then treated like the supreme villain of the piece because the film's not sure what to do with him. It's afraid to go all the way and accept Douglas as our anti-hero, like the original film did, and in turn, deceives its own protagonist and even we the audience. It only hurts more that his character is saddled with such a pathetic excuse for an ending; I'd almost like to make a movie law about the use of gunshots to end thrillers - they're merely half-assed ways of finishing a conflict when they could be finished with a much more complex and much more satisfying finale (unforunately, that's not going to be the alternate ending I saw).
I'd be willing to look over this (I did with "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover") if it had been satisfying up till then, but sadly enough it's only marginally satisfying up to that point anyway. Throughout, the script takes numerous easy-way-outs amongst the clever twists of the storyline, and instead of being a gleefully twisted duel between Douglas and Mortensen, both of whom are greedy, it adds on maudlin sympathy involving the wife (played nicely by Gwyneth Paltrow), who is seen as a whole other section of the movie as the big distraction: she may uncover some cheap truths about Douglas (why can't it be more about his wounded ego and NOT about mere greed), but she also ends up as the Achilles Heal to Mortensen, a huge detractor for the film. This ends up taking us out of the film, and doubting the film's handle on his character: is he changing from his past self, and if he is, then why is he at the same time not - I mean, what gives, man? Throughout, Davis directs with a mistaken amount of distance from the situation, as if he's not sure whose story this actually is. In the original, Hitchcock gave some sympathy for the husband, and later on, made it about wife and the husband. But Davis isn't sure who to highlight at any time, and we never feel for any of them, not even Paltrow's wife character. A great thriller would have us identifying with all of them, and then slowly and subtlely closing in on all of them as they play off one another.
I'm not much of a fan of Davis, save for his work on "The Fugitive," and I'm again not a fan after this film: his use of suspense is too slick and shock-loving. He even mucks up the assasination scene: in the original, the most memorable image was Kelly on the phone, oblivious to the assasin behind her (it's even on the cover of the tape, folks); here, it's another forgettable, in-the-moment jump into frame assasination, never more frightening than a quick jump in your seat, forgettable seconds later (though I have to applaud its replacement for the scissors - nice touch). Not that I'm wishing it were more like the original; I'd just like to see it as the competent, chilling film that it apparently wants to be but isn't. Instead, it's a film filled with a couple smart aspects, some nice twists, and a good jump or two, but absolutely nothing that you'll remember more than a week after seeing it. Here's to hoping someday someone will be able to make a Hitch remake that can successfully stand up on its own. Or, rather, how about just abandoning remakes altogether and instead coming up with a wholly original thriller, huh?
MY RATING (out of 4): **1/2
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