A Perfect Murder



A Perfect Murder is a 1998 thriller film starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Viggo Mortensen. It's a Remake of the 1954 Hitchcock film Dial M for Murder.

Steven Taylor is a Wall Street hedge fund manager who has risen his way through riches. He has a faithful wife named Emily. However, unknown to him, she isn't a faithful wife as she is having an affair with a poor artist, David Shaw, and plans to leave him.

Upon discovering the affair, Steven confonts David and exposes him as a con-artist after his and Emily's money, but offers to pay him a substantial amount of money anyway....in exchange for killing his wife.


 * Bilingual Bonus/Cunning Linguist: Emily is a translator at the UN and fluent in numerous languages. This pays off when she's able to forge a personal connection with one of the detectives assisting her -- asking about the welfare of his wife and children -- leading him to put in the extra effort to look after her. Later in the film, as she ventures into an inner-city neighborhood, her perfect Spanish similarly impresses the local hoodlums.
 * Deleted Scene: The original ending was that Emily shoots Steven after finding out what he did. His dying words are that the police would know, so she fakes a struggle, and she ends up committing the perfect murder.
 * May-December Romance: Then 25/26-year-old Gywneth Paltrow, with then 54-year-old Michael Douglas.
 * Modesty Bedsheet
 * Plethora of Mistakes
 * Thanatos Gambit
 * Third-Act Stupidity
 * Xanatos Speed Chess