Review of A Perfect Murder (1998) by Dawdlingpoet — 26 Nov 2021

This is quite a tense thriller, with Michael Douglas playing the clearly villanious, scheming husband Steven who hides more secrets than first appears. The story appears fairly simple at first, with the wife clearly being unfaithful, the hit being planned and subsequently botched but the way it unwinds is interesting enough, in that we get a better idea of his background, not only us as viewers but also Emily who discovers the legitimacy of Steven's business has been seriously put in doubt, raising suspicions considerably.

Anyway yes; the movie is very tense, with the musical score (use of instruments (strings etc.)) really making you feel on the edge of your seat. Its quite violent in parts and its probably advisable for particularly squeamish people to give this a miss, though otherwise its perfectly fine, if you don't mind the fact that the basic story is one thats been, pardon the pun, done to death already. I thought that the performances and the sheer constant tenseness present kept this movie from being really quite bland and purely predictable, instead given the main plot twist, I was left curious to find out how it would end and I would say that the ending was one that did surprise to me an extent.

Throughout the majority of the movie, there are clear 'goodies' and 'baddies' and you wonder how Emily can get away from what seems to be a sealed fate but its interesting to see when David Suchets character (had to throw that in there - can't say I expected to see 'Poirot' turn up in the middle of pretty much modern day NYC but there you go(!) it must be a bug bear to be typecast but there again this movie dates from late 90s and he didn't take on the role of Poirot until the '00s right? anywhooo...I digress!), Mohamed Karaman, comes to the fore, what comes to light and moreso how Emily manages to piece things together, while Steven is carefully covering his back. Their both clearly very professional characters and certainly their portrayed well, as both of their characters have stern and determined looks at certain times and indeed seem quite determined to do what they feel they have to do to save themselves in their own way. Whether this story is one which would appeal to you could depend, sure there's the issue of why should we care about such well off people and the usual tale of jealousy and control freak-ery? but reviewing it in terms of being a piece of entertainment, I felt that it was pretty engrossing and, like I say, it was quite tense and thrilling at times - I didn't feel certain of the outcome or that it was a let down, so I think for what it is, its a good movie. I felt that there was a definite degree of bluff or double bluff present in the story, with neither Steven or Emily wanting to appear to the other for most of the time, as if their on the losing side, put it that way. I wouldn't say that this is a movie with particularly amazing special effects or even action scenes as such, though there are what could be classified as fight scenes, certainly there are violent scenes of course but I feel that its the twists and turns with the plot and the good cast that really make this movie work, which is a good thing I think, I don't think its necessarily good for a movie to work only due to one or two pieces of good CGI effects, thats a bit gimmicky. I'm not really sure if there's anything else I can add about this movie, I think that about covers it all to be honest. I read on IMDB that its a remake of the Hitchcock classic 'Dial 'M' for Murder' which would fit given how the hit goes down (or does it?) - how many movies, say in the last 50-70 years, have been 'remade' (or should that be re-done? you know what I mean) and do they ever do real justice to the original, to make it worth having been made? that could be debatable...certainly nowadays it seems Hollywood is running out of original scripts. I tend to not be too impressed with such remales of sometimes 'bygone' movies, especially if they just stick one or two a list actors or actresses in the credits, to make people think ahhh well such and such is in it and I think I may have heard of the original movie when I was young but I was too young to see it then so I simply must see this remake! hmmm...(!). As it happens though, I don't feel I can mark this movie down too far and the original movie was made in the 1950s, so its not based on a book or movie originally from too 'way back when'- I wouldn't say the film is particularly genius or amazing but its certainly pretty engrossing and I do feel that Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow pull their weight pretty well, so I suppose in this case yes, its worth watching for that but it isn't always the case for every such remake movie, it really depends on the script and so on.