A Perfect Murder

A Perfect Murder

Infobox Film
name = A Perfect Murder


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Andrew Davis
producer = Arnold Kopelson
Anne Kopelson
Peter Macgregor-Scott
Christopher Mankiewicz
writer = Patrick Smith Kelly
starring = Michael Douglas
Gwyneth Paltrow
Viggo Mortensen
David Suchet
music = James Newton Howard
cinematography = Dariusz Wolski
editing =
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = June 5, 1998
runtime = 108 min.
country = United States
awards =
language = English
budget = $50-60 million (approx)
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id = 1:162503
imdb_id = 0120787|

"A Perfect Murder" is a 1998 thriller film, made by Kopelson Entertainment and Warner Bros.. It was directed by Andrew Davis and starred Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen. It is a remake of the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock film "Dial M for Murder", though the characters of Halliday and Lesgate are combined. The screenplay was by Patrick Smith Kelly based on the play by Frederick Knott.

Plot summary

Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) is a Wall Street hedge fund manager who has risen a long way to achieve his riches. His successful investments and speculations allow him to live an extravagant upper-class lifestyle with his beautiful and much younger wife, Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow). Unfortunately for Taylor, his investments are unravelling and he knows he is going to need his wife's personal fortune to maintain his status and lifestyle. Emily seems like a devoted, faithful wife, but in reality, she is having an affair with a penniless painter, David (Viggo Mortensen), and is considering leaving her husband.

Although she thinks herself safe, Steven knows everything about the affair, and has also been able to uncover the painter’s dark past. He pays the artist a visit and confronts him with knowledge about the affair and the fact that Steven knows about the artist’s prison time and past con games against rich women. He also sees the wedding ring that Emily left. All seems lost for the artist, until Steven makes him an offer. He is willing to pay $500,000 in cash for the death of his wife. Steven has already laid out a detailed plan, one which will supply him with a firm alibi and keep the murder from being traced to his wife’s lover.

Steven tells David he will hide his latchkey outside the service entrance to his apartment. Steven will go out for his regular night out, during which his wife usually stays in and takes a bath. David is to sneak into the flat and, at 10 pm when he phones his wife, kill her by bludgeoning her with a frying pan. Steven goes home and makes preparations, taking the latchkey from his wifes bag and hiding it outside the service entrance as planned. He then convinces his wife to stay in and sets off for his night out.

At 10 pm he phones his wife as planned, and Emily answers the phone. She is then attacked with a masked assailant and fights with him. Finally she manages to kill the attacker by stabbing him in the neck with a meat thermometer, and desperately calls for help.

Steven returns to find his wife alive and the masked killer dead in a pool of his own blood. Before the police arrive he quickly takes the latchkey from the killers pocket and puts it back on Emily's keyring.

When police officers remove the mask however, the killer is not who Steve expected. Before him lies a total stranger, someone who David had hired to do the "dirty work". Later on, Steven takes Emily to her mother's house, and Emily attempts to call David to let him know that she's alright, but David thinks that she's dead. Someone calls again but when David picks up, it is not Emily, but Steven saying "we have something to talk about." They meet on a boat and recap what happened the night before and decide to wait until Steven has thought of what to do next with David asking, "do I keep fucking your wife in the meantime, or what?"

Meanwhile, Emily tells her mother that she is going to break up with Steven. Then she goes back to the scene of the crime, mysteriously remembering what had happened, and then someone walks in on her. It is Steven, saying that she had left the front door wide open. She then tells Steven that she can't stay any longer with him and that she will be staying with her friend. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Steven is in serious financial trouble, and he had planned to kill Emily not only for cheating on him, but also for her money. David later calls Steven and he reveals that he made a tape detailing the whole plan and demands that Steven pays the money.

Steven goes to David's loft to pay him but David is not there, a note is left saying he wants to meet up somewhere else. The phone rings and Steven picks up thinking it's David but it's a ticketing agent confirming David's train out of the city. Steven meets David and hands over the money, then disappears. David boards the train out of the city, but when he opens the bathroom door, Steven lunges out and stabs him. While David is dying he reveals that he sent the tape to Emily.

Steven rushes home to try and get the tape, he succeeds before Emily can find it. Thinking that everything is OK he goes and has a shower. But Emily sees the empty bag next to the safe. She opens the safe and finds the tape that Steven hid in there and listens to it. When Steven gets out she reminds him that she still hasn't found her key (Steven took it and hid it so the killer can use it to get in). Steven remembers where he put it and goes and gets it. Emily confronts him revealing that she knows everything about his plan and threatens to go public. He attacks her and in the struggle, she picks up a gun and kills him.

Cast

*Michael Douglas as Steven Taylor
*Gwyneth Paltrow as Emily Bradford Taylor
*Viggo Mortensen as David Shaw
*David Suchet as Mohamed Karaman
*Sarita Choudhury as Raquel Martinez
*Michael P. Moran as Bobby Fain
*Novella Nelson as Ambassador Alice Wills
*Constance Towers as Sandra Bradford

Trivia

* Viggo Mortensen is an accomplished painter, and all David's artworks are Mortensen's own.
* The Taylors' apartment building is 7 East 91st Street on Manhattan's Upper East Side. coord|40.784555|-73.957464

External links

*imdb title|id=0120787|title=A Perfect Murder
*amg name|id=1:162503|name=A Perfect Murder


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