Saturday 15 February 2014

027. Dressed to Kill (United States - 1980)


What a waste of a great concept. The idea of a psychiatrist tormented by his sexual identity and gone murderer. Dr. Elliott/Bobbi (Michael Caine) is a double-character that feels impulse to kill any of his patients who happen to seduce him anyhow (oops, spoiler, lads and lasses!). That's a nice thriller in itself. The problem is that Brian de Palma is as confuse concerning narrative as his main character is concerning his sexuality. A messed up experience, full of odd, "silent film dragged out of history's line" scenes and bad close-ups and suspense triggers. A critique by Roger Ebert states that "Dressed to Kill is an exercise in style, not narrative; it would rather look and feel like a thriller than make sense, but DePalma has so much fun with the conventions of the thriller that we forgive him and go along". I don't, Roger. I'm sorry. It's not just because Brian is such a big name in the industry that I'll forgive his bizarre plotline presentation, the bad performances (except for Caine, sure) and obtuse photography.

Big names behind mediocre films don't buy out my point of view.

Score
Cinematography: 7.0
Acting: 6.5
Editing: 5.0
Sound: 6.5
Text: 7.0
Concept: 8.5
Premise execution: 4.5

Average Score: 6.4

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