Everything about Perfect Crime is repellent and grotesque. Its hero, Rafael (Guillermo Toledo), is a shallow, womanising department store clerk with a yen for consumption; his goal is nothing more substantial than to become floor manager and rule over the store with an iron fist.
Rafael's tragedy is to scuffle with the rival promoted over him, and accidentally engenders his demise, which wouldn't be so bad if Lourdes (Monica Cervera), the most homely clerk in the store, hadn't witnessed the whole thing. As it turns out, she's just as ruthless as our hero and decides to keep quiet on the matter, provided, of course, that Rafael becomes her boyfriend. And after she takes over his life, he decides he might want to commit a second murder: hers.
The film's two completely unsympathetic characters, consumerist nightmare universe and most garish visuals of any comedy this year add up to something very cynical, very heartless and very, very funny. Utterly unconcerned with redemption or quiet good taste, the film is free to rampage across the screen leaving destruction in its wake and refreshingly fails to pull the eleventh hour life affirmation that afflicts most of Hollywood's R-rated comedies.
To deliberate over its "ugly is good" platitudes would be pushing it, but Alex de la Iglesia directs with enough skill to spike the already hilarious punch, and his just-so representation of flailing bodies and unattractiveness, both physical and spiritual, is so much of a good thing that I'm not going to pick intellectual nits. This is flat out the funniest movie of the year, and deserves better than the limited-release bum's rush it's sure to get. (Vitagrap)
Rafael's tragedy is to scuffle with the rival promoted over him, and accidentally engenders his demise, which wouldn't be so bad if Lourdes (Monica Cervera), the most homely clerk in the store, hadn't witnessed the whole thing. As it turns out, she's just as ruthless as our hero and decides to keep quiet on the matter, provided, of course, that Rafael becomes her boyfriend. And after she takes over his life, he decides he might want to commit a second murder: hers.
The film's two completely unsympathetic characters, consumerist nightmare universe and most garish visuals of any comedy this year add up to something very cynical, very heartless and very, very funny. Utterly unconcerned with redemption or quiet good taste, the film is free to rampage across the screen leaving destruction in its wake and refreshingly fails to pull the eleventh hour life affirmation that afflicts most of Hollywood's R-rated comedies.
To deliberate over its "ugly is good" platitudes would be pushing it, but Alex de la Iglesia directs with enough skill to spike the already hilarious punch, and his just-so representation of flailing bodies and unattractiveness, both physical and spiritual, is so much of a good thing that I'm not going to pick intellectual nits. This is flat out the funniest movie of the year, and deserves better than the limited-release bum's rush it's sure to get. (Vitagrap)
