The perfectly ironic title

Alfred Hitchcock gets another overhaul with 1998's A Perfect Murder. Aragorn was clearly slumming til Lord of the Rings came along, but he knows he's lucky because a part like that doesn't usually fall into the lap of someone his age when he got it. He does what he can here as the middle class part of a 1% love triangle. With all due respect to director Andrew Davis, there's many, many things wrong with this film. Happens every time he sets foot outside his native Chicago. (Looks great in HD, though!) Take the initial scene with Suchet, for example. I want to see justice prevail as much as the next guy, but Michael Douglas should've been able to handle this guy... never mind. Suchet doesn't have much of a part, anyhow; clearly, not as juicy as Poirot. The film dies the death of a thousand cuts, but for me, the big, clarifying flaw is the casting of Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow... they're father and daughter, right? NO! Husband and wife! Dude, marry someone your own age! I know, I know, the rules are different for the super-rich, or those who appear to be for purposes of this film. Still, there's just something inherently wrong about it. Then, there's the question of the whole pre-nup situation. Apparently, Paltrow's beset on all sides by not-so-rich men trying to get at her. Douglas at least dabbles in white-collar crime, much like Gordon Gekko did. This film provides a nice mid-point marker in that regard, as the Steven Taylors of the world were on their way to turning the world economy inside out. A mere ten years later, they would destroy it completely, then blame it all on Obama. If nothing else, it's a nice love letter to all those rich would-be murderers out there: this is what happens when you don't plan it right.

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-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan