The Michael Douglas
Fan Page Not Quite Pulling Off "Perfect Murder" |
 |
The Michael Douglas
Fan Page Not Quite Pulling Off "Perfect Murder" |
|
"As you can see," Alfred Hitchcock once
remarked about Dial M for Murder's most famous scene, "the best way to do it is with
scissors."
There's only one thing you really need to know about A Perfect Murder, a glossy
style-over-substance remake of Dial M. Instead of a pair of scissors stuck in the back,
the victim gets it with a meat thermometer in the neck.
Well done? Nope. More like overcooked.
You do tend to feel sorry for any filmmaker foolish enough to tamper with Hitchcock's
legacy. Even if the movie is one of the master of suspense's more pedestrian outings, a
macabre-chic trifle about a jealous husband who hires a hit man to do away with his
adulterous wife so he can inherit her trust-fund millions. But director Andrew Davis (The
Fugitive), along with novice writer Patrick Smith Kelly, doesn't deserve much sympathy for
mucking with what was once a tautly tidy thriller and turning it into a humorless Dial M
for Mediocrity - updated, of course, with cell phones.
The big innovation: Eschewing an outside assassin, Michael Douglas' control-freak
industrialist blackmails trophy spouse Gwyneth Paltrow's artist lover (mumbly Viggo
Mortensen, so virile he doesn't bother to clean the paint off his hands pre-coitus) into
doing the dirty deed.
The original's drop-dead lovely Grace Kelly was no saint. But showing Paltrow's midday
trysts at Mortensen's trendy studio loft in all their neck-nibbling glory makes her appear
as duplicitous as the men. She's such a doltish colt that some of the more cynical among
us may actually root for her demise. (Especially if they sat through Hush and saw what can
happen to a movie when she survives a murder plot.)
Beyond their Grand Canyon age gap, Paltrow and Douglas clearly aren't meant for each
other, though about the most you learn about their well-chilled relationship is she likes
baths and he likes showers. But Douglas does his Gordon Gekko-Wall Street best to
arrogantly slither about as another Manhattan reptile involved in shady dealings.
However, more attention was obviously paid to his swank wardrobe than his overripe
dialogue. "That's not happiness to see me, is it?" is how he greets his wife's
scowl when he interrupts her en route to Mortensen's lair. That's not happiness to hear
you talk like a fortune cookie, either.
Once the killing doesn't go quite as planned , it's a kick to see Douglas sink into a
bug-eyed panic and devise a cover-up. But the movie relies on too many farfetched twists
and turns. How precious is it that payoff money is toted about in an upscale Barneys bag?
Especially when the reshot ending is strictly Kmart.
Start shaking now. The upcoming Psycho remake will probably use a spatula instead of a
knife.
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