The Perfect Crime (El Crimen Perfecto) (2004) | DVD Review

When your darkly comic and slightly slapstick film is devoid of a single likable character, it better deliver the goods in terms of plot and laughs. With The Prefect Crime (El Crimen Ferpecto), writer-director Alex de la Iglesia (The Day of the Beast, Dying of Laughter) not only succeeds in making his audience laugh out loud, he has delivered the best black comedy to come along in quite some time.

Rafael (the excellent Guillermo Toledo, El otro lado de la camo) is an extremely gifted salesman working as manager of women’s wear in the largest department store in Madrid. He’s on top of the world, regularly bedding his female coworkers and leading the sales force month in and month out. He’s a virtual lock to get the floor manager position, but he’s passed over for promotion by his rival from men’s wear, Don Antonio (veteran Spanish TV actor Luis Varela). When Don Antonio mysteriously disappears, Rafael is the most likely suspect. Enter Lourdes (Monica Cervera, 20 centimetros), an even more morally ambiguous person than Rafael, who witnessed the whole thing and makes him an offer: become her boyfriend and she’ll keep his secret. Lourdes is the only one of Rafael’s coworkers that he has no interest in, simply because she is not physically up to his standards. He reluctantly agrees to her offer and soon finds himself regretting it. Being the shallow person he is, he’s repulsed by her rather pedestrian looks and starts to resent her for taking control of his life, eventually devising elaborate plots to kill her.
The Perfect Crime played in theaters in New York and Los Angeles in August 2005 and was nominated for 6 Goya Awards (the Spanish Oscars), including Best Actor (Toledo), Best New Actress (Cervera), and Best Supporting Actor (Varela). These were definitely well deserved nominations, as the performances in this film were fantastic. Toledo oozes ego and confidence as Rafael, but also excellently conveys his character’s misery at having to spend his life with the homely Lourdes. Cervera’s performance, on the other hand, is a bit more subtle and she easily captures her character’s flighty yet conniving personality. And then there’s Varela. Let’s just say that it’s probably the best performance you’ll ever see by a guy who spends most of the film with a meat cleaver stuck in the top of his smouldering head.

When a director has a great script to work from it’s difficult to mess up a film; when he’s directing his own excellent script it’s practically impossible. de la Iglesia’s approach to humor is reminiscent of the early work of Pedro Almodovar, and his script is a study in black comedy. He has taken a dark Hitchcock-ian idea and plays it for laughs, with great success. While the plot is admittedly simple and has been done before, the dialogue is quite snappy, the situational humor is a riot, and the onscreen chemistry between the actors is very strong. Where de la Iglesia excels, though, is in the details, the nudges and winks he throws at the audience.

Early on, when Rafael is being questioned by police about Don Antonio, particularly about a heated discussion the two were having shortly before Antonio’s disappearance, Rafael lies that they were arguing about the usual kind of stuff; you know, socks and ties. Later on, when Rafael is receiving regular visits from the ghost of Don Antonio, the two discuss…socks and ties. It’s these little nuances that make watching The Perfect Crime such a joy.

Once again, Tartan Video has released a technically superior DVD. The transfer is beautiful in Anamorphic Widescreen, the sound is excellent in 5.1 Dolby Surround and even better in DTS 5.1 Surround, if your system is equipped. The subtitles are well done and easy to follow, although their positioning on the screen could have been a little lower, completely on the bottom black bar, for example. This is only a mild gripe, as the subtitles only occasionally obstruct the view of the film, and even at that only for brief seconds at a time.
For special features, we get the usual trailers for other Tartan video releases, a trailer for this film, an enjoyable making-of featurette that shows how laid back and casual the whole production was, and a feature length commentary from de la Iglesias which also explores his casual yet professional approach to filmmaking. He comes off as a guy who truly enjoys what he does and feels lucky to be able to make a living at it.

While The Perfect Crime is not going to be remembered as a technical masterpiece from a gifted auteur, that’s not what the black comedy genre is all about. It is, however, a perfectly enjoyable comedy filled with fantastic performances that are made all the better by an excellent script. I’d recommend this film to anybody whether you are into dark humor or not.

Movie rating – 4

Disc Rating – 3