A Perfect Murder (1998)
DIRECTOR: Andrew Davis
CAST: Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Viggo Mortensen, David Suchet
REVIEW:
A Perfect Murder is a slick, stylish Hitchockian thriller that serves up plenty of diabolical twists and turns (in fact, it’s a loose remake of Hitchcock’s 1954 film Dial M for Murder, although much is changed). For fans of this genre, it’s a suitably devious little entry.
Wealthy businessman Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) and his multi-lingual, elegant younger wife Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow) seem to have it all: a lavish apartment, a happy marriage, and more money than they could ever spend. But from the inside things are less picture-perfect. Steven is a cold and distant husband, and Emily is in the midst of hot-and-heavy extramarital bliss with poor artist David Shaw (Viggo Mortensen). Steven is not as oblivious as he seems, however, and one day confronts Shaw in his studio, but his reaction is not what the other man might expect. Steven offers Shaw half a million dollars, not to leave Emily…but to kill her. And he’s come prepared with the dirt on Shaw’s real name and his past as a gold-digging con man. After a little half-hearted conflict, Shaw cannot resist such a lucrative offer, and Steven seems to have planned everything out down to the last detail. But just as it looks like everything is going to go smoothly, Emily turns out to be more of a handful than expected. And that’s just the first hiccup in this “perfect murder”.
Undeniably, part of the appeal of a movie like this is watching a Machiavellian character navigate all sorts of twists and turns, waiting to see whether he’s going to get away with his dastardly schemes, and Patrick Smith Kelly’s screenplay keeps things moving along their twisting path. There’s no standout plot holes, and no glaring examples of cliched behavior in less intelligent thrillers where ostensibly intelligent characters do dumb things. The movie takes the time for a little background. Steven is motivated not only by jealousy but by more pragmatic concerns; his business is taking a plunge, and Emily’s hefty inheritance might be needed for his salvation. There’s a thinly-veiled coldness to the opening scenes with Steven and Emily in their apartment; they look like a photogenic society couple, but there’s a chill that never thaws.
It also helps of course that director Andrew Davis (The Fugitive) is working with a capable cast. Michael Douglas is perfectly cast as the cold, diabolical Steven, slithering through the proceedings with reptilian charisma. As Machiavellian as he might be, it’s hard not to almost root on some level for a bad guy who’s as smart as he is ruthless. It’s undeniably one of the movie’s primary pleasures to watch Steven deal with the unexpected kinks in his plans, and wonder how long he’s going to manage to stay on top. Gwyneth Paltrow presents Emily as a naive, sheltered trophy wife, then turns out to be more formidable, both physically and intellectually, than anyone gives her credit for. Viggo Mortensen plays the “other man” with a degree of ambiguity; we get the feeling he does care for Emily on some level, but alas not enough to resist the allure of greed. He serves his purpose as a “wild card” because, while he might be getting in over his head trying to play games with Steven, he’s still capable of lobbing the occasional unexpected and unwelcome complication his way. The only other cast member of any significance is David Suchet as a shrewd detective who’s not entirely convinced by Steven’s seemingly unimpeachable alibis, even if he can’t really prove them wrong. Suchet’s casting is almost certainly an in-joke nod to the fact that he’s previously played Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot, but his bit here ends up feeling a little superfluous; he provides a smidgen of pertinent information, but doesn’t really ever have a substantial bearing on a plot that’s all about Steven, Emily, and Shaw.
I pretty much have only a couple mild disappointments with A Perfect Murder. One is the eye-rollingly contrived perfect timing of an overheard phone call that allows a character to hear crucial information at an opportune moment. The other is that, like all too many generally intelligent thrillers (1996’s Ransom, for example), it serves up plenty of twists and turns right up until the climax, but then can’t seem to come up with a more creative way to cap things off than a physical altercation and shots fired. It’d be nice to see more movies like this figure out a way to end the game besides lazily falling back on a perfunctory and obligatory ending dose of action and someone getting blown away. But those are fairly small blemishes on an otherwise deliciously devious little thriller that’s worthy of the label “Hitchcockian”. A Perfect Murder might not be quite perfect, but for those looking for a thriller they can savor without leaving their brain at the door, it’s a slickly diverting slice of entertainment.
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