The Perfect Crime (El Crimen Perspecto/2004/Tartan/DTS)
Picture: C+ Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: C+
It is not
easy to do a comedy, especially a dark one without the endless trappings
self-indulgence and a general sense of celebrated ugliness sin the media
offers. Alex de la Iglesia’s The Perfect Crime (El Crimen Perspecto/2004) is actually not a bad film in its attempt
to be darkly humorous and has more hits than misses, even if some of it was
obvious and I never laughed out loud. I
still had a smile or two, though.
The film
starts out as an oversexed Alfie
complete with main character Rafael (Guillermo Toledo) talking to the audience
and camera directly, then the film takes a dark turn when the man who is
supposed to get a promotion he expected suddenly disappears. That makes him the top suspect giving him the
biggest motive. As things get crazier,
the screenplay by Iglesia and Jorge Guerricaechevarria somehow manages to hold
together just enough. The conclusion is amusing
on its own terms, but not from a build-up that might have had a bigger
payoff. Still, if you like a good
comedy, this one is worth a good look.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is shot on film, but this transfer has
some hazing and detail issues throughout despite the consistent good
color. Jose L. Moreno delivers a vivid
and memorable cinematography job, but only an HD version is going to do the
expressionistic elements of this work justice.
The sound is here in Dolby Digital 2.0, Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1 mixes,
with the DTS just edging out the Dolby tracks and being dialogue-based, you
only get so much in the surrounds. Roque
Banos’ music is a plus. Extras include a
trailer, making of featurette and feature length audio commentary by Iglesia.
- Nicholas Sheffo
