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#268 - Dressed to Kill
Brian de Palma, 1980
When a woman is murdered, the investigation brings together a handful of disparate characters.
While it's no secret that de Palma's particular style of directing often pays homage to Hitchcock, it is with Dressed to Kill that the influence becomes overt to the point of feeling like a complete rip-off. Not only that, but it's hard not to feel like de Palma is also recycling concepts from his own movies - there were at least a couple of instances where the film copied Carrie (such as the fact that the opening scene involves a shower scene with gratuitous nudity that ends in violence, but then again that also happened in Blow Out - I guess he actually made it work with Blow Out). It's a shame because the film does seem to offer a decent (if overly derivative) premise and mixes in a giallo influence with its Hitchcockian ambitions, but the effectiveness of the execution is debatable.
I never quite know whether or not the inability to summarise a film without spoiling it to a considerable extent should be considered a sign of a film's strength or of its weakness. The fact that I could virtually spoil the entire film with a single word doesn't speak to its originality, so of course the quality of its execution is paramount. In that regard, Dressed to Kill still feels very much like de Palma with its lurid cinematography (which is probably this film's greatest strength, as established by one sequence that is captured in a lengthy uninterrupted take) and histrionic score, but unfortunately superficial style only gets one of his films so far unless it's got a compelling enough narrative (which it doesn't). As such, the film is held together by some fairly decent performances - Michael Caine is good enough as the murder victim's psychiatrist, while Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon end up being okay as the prime suspect and the victim's son respectively. Unfortunately, the actors aren't great at selling these rather underwritten characters. While it does have an alright undercurrent of suspense, the poor writing sullies it considerably, especially when the film reaches its endgame.
I'm not about to completely write off Dressed to Kill because it does have a fair bit of visual style and more than a few moments of tension and unpredictability, but it ends up being undone by damn near everything else about it. It still feels awfully rough and underweight (especially considering how de Palma followed it up with the far superior Blow Out immediately afterwards) and it doesn't quite manage to compensate for its glaring weaknesses in terms of scripting, character development, or pacing.
Brian de Palma, 1980
When a woman is murdered, the investigation brings together a handful of disparate characters.
While it's no secret that de Palma's particular style of directing often pays homage to Hitchcock, it is with Dressed to Kill that the influence becomes overt to the point of feeling like a complete rip-off. Not only that, but it's hard not to feel like de Palma is also recycling concepts from his own movies - there were at least a couple of instances where the film copied Carrie (such as the fact that the opening scene involves a shower scene with gratuitous nudity that ends in violence, but then again that also happened in Blow Out - I guess he actually made it work with Blow Out). It's a shame because the film does seem to offer a decent (if overly derivative) premise and mixes in a giallo influence with its Hitchcockian ambitions, but the effectiveness of the execution is debatable.
I never quite know whether or not the inability to summarise a film without spoiling it to a considerable extent should be considered a sign of a film's strength or of its weakness. The fact that I could virtually spoil the entire film with a single word doesn't speak to its originality, so of course the quality of its execution is paramount. In that regard, Dressed to Kill still feels very much like de Palma with its lurid cinematography (which is probably this film's greatest strength, as established by one sequence that is captured in a lengthy uninterrupted take) and histrionic score, but unfortunately superficial style only gets one of his films so far unless it's got a compelling enough narrative (which it doesn't). As such, the film is held together by some fairly decent performances - Michael Caine is good enough as the murder victim's psychiatrist, while Nancy Allen and Keith Gordon end up being okay as the prime suspect and the victim's son respectively. Unfortunately, the actors aren't great at selling these rather underwritten characters. While it does have an alright undercurrent of suspense, the poor writing sullies it considerably, especially when the film reaches its endgame.
WARNING: "The ending" spoilers below
In the end, it's revealed that Caine's character is actually the one responsible for murdering the original victim (who was played by Angie Dickinson, but I didn't mention that above because it was too spoiler-y) and also repeatedly threatening Allen's character. This is credited to Caine's character being a closeted transgender woman whose discomfort with her gender dysphoria manifested as murderous anger against anyone who made her feel "masculine". As if that wasn't a bad enough variation on the twist ending from Psycho (speaking of which, that was the single word that would spoil this movie, but I guess if you're reading this then you probably already guessed it yourself), the fact that de Palma rehashes the scary daydream ending from Carrie feels especially insulting.
I'm not about to completely write off Dressed to Kill because it does have a fair bit of visual style and more than a few moments of tension and unpredictability, but it ends up being undone by damn near everything else about it. It still feels awfully rough and underweight (especially considering how de Palma followed it up with the far superior Blow Out immediately afterwards) and it doesn't quite manage to compensate for its glaring weaknesses in terms of scripting, character development, or pacing.