adam-703-808689 The makers of this plotty, glossy thriller have based their work on an excellent, dark novel by Patricia Highsmith. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't even come close to representing Highsmith's carefully constructed murky little world. The main problem - apart from the over-egged art direction and false, icon-ridden recreation of the mid-1950s - is the characterisations. In Highsmith's original, the main character of Walter (Patrick Wilson, on good form) and his relationship with his neurotic wife, Clara (Jessica Biel, lost) is complex and fascinating. As is the relationship between Walter and his new amour, Ellie (in the book she's a modest, sincere music teacher; in the movie she's a phoney hipster, singer). The movie relationships are diluted to the simplest terms, as though this were a trailer for what they could be. The most sinister character ( well-portrayed by Eddie Marsan), Walter Kimmel, is simply sinister without any exploration of his relationships with anyone else or his view of the world. Most of Highsmith's plot is intact, but rather than moan on about this travesty, I suggest you read the book, "The Blunderer", it's excellent on so many levels.

tomsview I must admit I'm still not absolutely sure what happened in the end and I watched it twice. "A Kind of Murder" is a quirky little story; a bit like an episode on the old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".Patrick Wilson plays Walter Stackhouse, an architect and amateur writer who is becoming disenchanted with his neurotic wife, Clara (Jessica Biel). He becomes fixated on the case of Marty Kimmel (Eddie Marsan), a man who may have murdered his wife. When Walter's wife turns up dead, an apparent suicide, a detective, Lawrence Corby (Vincent Kartheiser), suspects it may be a copycat killing and pursues both men with the single-mindedness of Peter Falk's Columbo, but with none of his affability. Finally we seem to be left not really knowing if Walter did it or is simply guilty of an overactive imagination? Patricia Highsmith's novels are tough ones to bring to life on the screen; they never end up as profound as you think they will. The films usually start with a clever idea, but run out of puff by the final curtain - The "Ripley" films and "The Two Faces of January" come to mind.Good looking Patrick Wilson and Jessica Biel play against type creating unexpected characters, and this combined with Eddie Marsan's strange little bookshop owner and Vincent Kartheiser's unpleasant detective give the movie an odd edge; it's a hard one to love.The film has a subtle score with a seductive lilt by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, the go-to composers for the slightly off kilter ("Enemy" and "The Gift"). Credit also for the early 1960's setting. From the clothes, the cars and the interiors to scenes at bus terminals and train stations, it captures the look of the period and, if you were around at the time, brings back memories. It also gives the film a point of difference, especially as a film such as this has to compete with dozens of high quality, film length dramas and mini series that pour in through TV, cable and satellite.However, it remains to be seen if "A Kind of Murder" with its fairly contrived scenario and rather annoying ending will stay in the memory.

Norm K I loved the look and texture of this movie. It is beautifully noir without silly overacting and over-the-top scoring (as in De Palma's "Black Dahlia").In the story two suspects in two separate suspicious deaths are pursued by an obsessed detective. The detective, played by Vincent Kartheiser, is smart, sardonic and ruthless... oh yes, and patient.Of the suspects, Marty Kimmel (Eddie Marsen) is a bookish bookseller intent upon getting away with the murder of his wife. He is a sociopath and, as is the case with sociopaths, considers himself superior to the rest of humanity. Walter Stackhouse (Patrick Wilson), is guilty only of wishing his wife were dead. When she commits suicide, his guilty conscience motivates him to make a number of bad decisions which seem to implicate him in her death.Largely, by ironic coincidence, these two men's lives are entwined: Stackhouse becomes fascinated by Mrs. Kimmels murder after reading about it, both women will die outside the same restaurant after riding on the same bus (on different nights), both husbands will follow the bus to the restaurant on the nights of the two deaths.With the detective acting as a catalyst, the two husbands play out their stories. One acts out of ruthless self-preservation, the other out of neurotic, and unjustified, guilt. How wonderfully noir can you get? As we watched, my wife mentioned similarities between this movie and some Hitchcock films. We had just watched "Vertigo" a couple of nights before and I had rolled my eyes through it: Jimmie Stewart being duped when he obviously should have known better and all the messy details being tied up neatly in one short scene at the end. I am not a fan of Hitchcock. To me, this film succeeded in doing what Hitchcock often tried to do--providing reasonable inner motives for unreasonable acts.There are some actions in the movie that don't seem logical at all to me. Maybe I need to watch it a second time. Still, there is a general sense that the characters' emotional states might precipitate those actions, though they are illogical.One comment to blanch-2 in her review, "A Kind of Mess" (love that title), The Chevrolet commercial is not part of the movie "Butterfield 8", it was meant to be part of the pre-movie attractions, along with the newsreels and cartoons often commercials were shown. The fact that the two husbands unknowingly sit a few seats apart as they watch this film is a nice creepy touch.To sum up, this film may not hold together the very best when it comes to sequencing but I think it is well worth the time taken to watch it.

waldenpond88 I rated it 6 from 10 stars as it was not as bad as the previous reviewers made it look like. But obviously I'm the only one in this reviewer group who watched the original Blunderer movie from France called "Le meurtrier" aka "Enough Rope" (1963) and THAT was a 10 star movie IMHO. It's such a shame that Criterion still has not released it in the US.Being very familiar with "Le meurtrier" and with Patricia Highsmith' novel "The Blunderer", I could compare and recognize scene after scene and can tell that this is a very close remake to the old French film. Then we watched the bonus material and actually kept waiting for the movie director or the stars to mention the older French version, but nobody did (?).Anyway, it's not a bad remake, because it keeps very close to the novel plot and to the French original movie. I just wish somebody who was interviewed for the bonus material would have mentioned/honored "Le meurtrier" in which Gert "Goldfinger" Froebe plays the book seller Kimmel, Maurice Ronet is Walter, beautiful Russian-French actress Marina Vlady impersonates Ellie, a musician (not a singer) and Yvonne Furneaux is Clara, Walter's Wife. Robert Hossein plays the detective.Spoiler: Instead of going to a jazz bar, Maurice Ronet goes to a music festival in the last scene. The original was mise en scene by Claude Autant-Lara in Nice at the Côte d'azur/French Riviera. The remake was filmed in New York City, also taking place in early 1960 with very beautiful colors. The cinematographer alone deserves 6 stars for this remake, but I also think that the actors were quite good. Check this out: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057303/?ref_=nv_sr_3