A PERFECT MURDER

Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow
Thursday, October 8, 1998
http://www.ew.com/ew/review/video/0,1683,329,perfectmurder.html


"A Perfect Murder," the Michael Douglas-Gwyneth Paltrow suspenser
that comes to video this week, is a loose reworking of a so-so
Hitchcock film, 1954's "Dial M for Murder," But, even so, it
rankles the diehards.

To a large extent, this is silly. Since traces of the director's
narrative grammar can be seen in nearly every movie today, why
not go to the source? Hell, even Hitch made one of his movies
twice -- "The Man Who Knew Too Much," in 1934 and 1956. Besides,
some of the best Hitch rips involve new scripts shot in derivative
style. Stanley Donen's 1963 "Charade," for instance, may be the
best Hitchcock film that Hitchcock never made: posh, witty, with
Cary Grant skating deliciously on the edge of absurdity as a
mystery man guiding widow Audrey Hepburn through a body-strewn
Paris. A decade later, Brian De Palma made a career out of mining
Hitchcock's style and plots; when "Sisters" came out in 1973, it
seemed daringly perched between the exploitive funk of "Psycho"
(with Margot Kidder almost as tremulously sympathetic as Norman
Bates) and the romanticism of "Vertigo" (note the swoony score by
Hitchcock regular Bernard Herrmann).

There have, of course, been straight remakes of Hitchcock, but
they keep little of his fluid visual wit. For instance, while
1979's "The Lady Vanishes" hews closely to Hitchcock's 1938
version, the casting of crass Cybill Shepherd and fumbling
Elliott Gould cancels any possibility of style. Far better is a
Hitchcockian sequel, "Psycho II," the 1983 attempt to cash in on
the slasher-movie craze by reviving old Norman himself. Directed
by Richard Franklin, it cannily lets star Anthony Perkins fill
in the blanks left by the original, making Norman more than ever
a victim of his own demons.

Then there are the Hitchcock parodies like Mel Brooks' "High
Anxiety" and the fiendish "Throw Momma From the Train," in which
writing instructor Billy Crystal sends one of his more backward
continuing-ed students (Danny DeVito, who also directed) to see
Hitch's "Strangers on a Train," setting off a blissfully ironic
variation on that film's crisscross murder plot.

Maybe that's the way to approach the master: in smiling
supplication. Lord knows, director Andrew Davis' joyless,
proficient "Murder" could have used some juice. Douglas, in
full Gekko mode, and tissue-pale Paltrow take the roles (first
filled by Ray Milland and Grace Kelly) of the rich older husband
and the errant wife he plans to have killed. Murder's one
notable plot switch is that Paltrow's lover, played by Viggo
Mortensen, is a scuzz as well. Hitchcock kept his film (based on
a play) close to the couple's apartment; Murder fans out across
Manhattan's moneyed precincts, and while the sets are dreamy,
it's hard to care for these denizens of Trump Land. Comparing
the endings is particularly instructive: What was a satisfying
cat-and-mouse endgame between Milland and a detective (John
Williams) is now a hasty, ridiculous shoot-out between man and
wife. "Murder" makes a passable rental, but that, finally, is
what's wrong with it. It goes off without a Hitch.

Murder: C
Charades: A-
Sisters: B
Vanishes: F
Psycho II: B
Train: B+

    -- Ty Burr