A PERFECT MURDER

• Starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen
• Directed by Andrew Davis
• Rated R, with violence, profanity and sex 107 minutes
• With 10 as a must-see, Jack gives this film a 8

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(June 5, 1998) -- In Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 thriller, Dial M for Murder, a man triggers his wife's murder with a well-timed call on a rotary-dial telephone. In the 1998 version, the trap is sprung with two cell phones.

But that's only one of several ways A Perfect Murder updates the original.

Andrew Davis (of Fugitive fame) has created a new and improved version, with first-rate performances.

Michael Douglas oozes confidence and power as veteran Wall Street high-roller Steven Taylor. After all, the resourceful actor won an Oscar playing a guy who could have been Taylor's brother in Wall Street.

Gwyneth Paltrow is ideally cast as Taylor's gorgeous trophy wife, Emily. Though Paltrow too closely resembles Grace Kelly (from the original Dial M), she still manages to create a plausible character who has her own complex identity. Paltrow is no mere Kelly clone.

Emily is having a red-hot affair with sexy downtown artist David Shaw (Viggo Mortensen), igniting the murder plot.

Could a contemporary film actually improve upon Hitchcock? Well, yes, even the venerable master of suspense wasn't infallible.

When Hitchcock made a film of Frederick Knott's stage play Dial M for Murder, he was restricted by cumbersome 3-D cameras and by his apparent respect for the original stage setting. The result is static melodrama, played out in one apartment set.

It's good Hitchcock -- but not great. The recently proposed updates of such classics as Psycho and Rear Window are silly, but with Dial M for Murder Hitch left room for improvement. And A Perfect Murder takes advantage.

The improvements include:

• A heightened sense of style, underscoring the characters' high-society Manhattan lifestyle. Douglas and Paltrow are incredibly elegant, and their home seems fresh from Architectural Digest.
  
• Invigorating, fluid camera movements that grab moviegoers and hold their attention. A Perfect Murder has been properly opened up to include museum parties, Wall Street offices, a downtown artist's loft and even a railroad compartment (a touch the train-loving Hitchcock would have particularly liked).
  
• Considerable fattening of the "other man" role, compared to the original. Mortensen is sexy, mysterious and a bit threatening as Emily's combustible lover.
  
• More complex plotting, with layers of criminal conniving beyond the murder scheme. Even viewers familiar with Dial M will be surprised.

But those small miscues mean only that in another 44 years, some other filmmaker can still find room for improvement.