A Perfect Murder

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A Perfect Murder

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Andrew Davis
Produced by Arnold Kopelson
Anne Kopelson
Peter Macgregor-Scott
Christopher Mankiewicz
Written by Patrick Smith Kelly
Starring Michael Douglas
Gwyneth Paltrow
Viggo Mortensen
David Suchet
Music by James Newton Howard
Cinematography Dariusz Wolski
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) June 5, 1998
Running time 108 min.
Country United States
Language English
Budget $50-60 million (approx)
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile
For other uses of "Perfect murder", see Perfect murder (disambiguation).

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.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

 This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can (December 2007).

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 wife, Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow). Emily seems like a devoted, faithful wife, but in reality, she has an affair with a penniless painter, David (Viggo Mortensen). Although she thinks herself safe, Steve knows everything about the affair, and has also been able to uncover the painter’s dark past. One day he pays the artist a visit and confronts him with knowledge about the affair and the fact that Taylor 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 Taylor makes him an offer. He is willing to pay $500,000 in cash for the death of his wife. Taylor 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. He prepares the final steps and leaves the house that night for a game of cards with friends. When he returns later that night, he finds his wife alive and the masked killer dead in a pool of his own blood. When police officers remove the mask, the killer is not who Steve expected. Before him lies a total stranger… someone who David had hired to do the wet work for both of them. 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 they recap on what happened the night before, with David asking, "Do I continue to see your wife 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.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Trivia

  • The Hindi movie Humraaz was a remake of this movie.
  • Viggo Mortensen is an accomplished painter, and all David's artworks are Mortensen's own.
  • The Tamil movie "Girivalam" was a remake of this film.

[edit] External links