Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

A Kind of Murder Blu-ray Movie Review

Pretty but Dull

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 17, 2017

The working title of director Andy Goddard's second feature was The Blunderer, which is the title of the Patricia Highsmith novel on which the film is based. By the time Goddard's effort premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2016, it had been rechristened A Kind of Murder ("AKoM"), a more overtly lurid monicker presumably adopted for marketing purposes. The original title would have been more apt, because the film is a blunder from first to last.

Walter Stackhouse (Patrick Wilson) is a successful New York architect, whose true passion is writing pulpy crime fiction. He and his real estate agent wife, Clara (Jessica Biel), share a fabulously appointed suburban home designed by Walter, but their marriage is disintegrating under the strain of Clara's depression and jealousy. Most recently, Clara is convinced that Walter is having an affair with a pretty blonde singer from Greenwich Village, Ellie Briess (Haley Bennett, The Girl on the Train), whom he meets when she accompanies another guest to a party at the Stackhouse residence.

Walter clips newspaper crime reports for inspiration, and one of them involves the case of Marty Kimmel (Eddy Marsan, Hancock), a bookstore owner whose wife was brutally murdered. The police detective on the case, Corby (Vincent Kartheiser, Mad Men), is convinced that Marty is the murderer, but he can't get around the alibi provided by Tony Ricco (Radek Lord), who works in a neighboring shop. Walter becomes fascinated with the Kimmel case, just as it begins to intersect with his own marital problems in unexpected ways that do not escape the attention of Det. Corby. Before he knows it, Walter is in the uncomfortable position of having to lie to the police repeatedly, even though he may very well be innocent of any crimes.

Highsmith's novel was a tense study in the ambiguities of guilt, but Susan Boyd's script and Goddard's direction transform it into a confused narrative where the focus wavers uncertainly between Walter and Marty Kimmel, and critical information is withheld for too long to generate any real suspense. AKoM announces its Sixties setting from its opening shot, which showcases a brightly lit movie theater marquee advertising Liz Taylor in Butterfield 8. From that point onward, the production design routinely upstages the story, so that you find yourself admiring the Stackhouse home and the meticulously crafted costumes when you should be getting caught up in the motivations of the characters and the mechanics of the plot.

But it's a bad sign when a film that flaunts its period aspirations on its exquisitely tailored sleeve makes obvious blunders. AKoM was shot in Cincinnati, where the design team attempted to re-create Greenwich Village in locations so patently not Manhattan that they're even more distracting than the Canadian mountains in the background of Rumble in the Bronx. The streets and alleys of Goddard's Greenwhich Village look nothing like the real thing then or now, and the cavernous hall where Ellie performs is a laughably bad impression of a Manhattan night spot. Mad Men "did" the American Sixties believably, because it was made by people who knew the world they were re-creating. To Goddard, that world is just an abstraction. If a movie is going to draw attention to its period evocation with almost every frame, it better get it right—and AKoM rarely does. Unmoored from a credible environment and floundering from incident to incident in a choppy plot, the characters never come alive, their jeopardy never feels real and their fates remain as distant and uninvolving as the clippings in Walter's scrapbook.

A Kind of Murder Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Kind of Murder was shot on the Arri Alexa by British cinematographer Chris Seager (whose most recent credit is the Starz series The White Princess). Seager's atmospheric lighting makes the most out of the fussy production design, which is routinely clouded by fog, rain, snow and ever-present cigarette smoke to the point that these conscious efforts at "atmosphere" become a distraction. The DP's work is well represented on Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, which features superior sharpness and detail without any hint of digital harshness. Blacks are solid and accurate, and the colorfully affluent surroundings of Walter Stackhouse's life and work contrast effectively with the dull and worn environs inhabited by Marty Kimmel (not to mention Det. Corby's spartan precinct). Aliasing, noise or other interference are wholly absent, and the average bitrate of 22 Mbps is adequate for this digitally acquired project.

A Kind of Murder Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

AKoM has a functional but unremarkable 5.1 sound mix, presented on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA. The surrounds provide environmental ambiance but little else, and the fidelity and dynamic range are what one expects from a contemporary production. The dialogue is clearly rendered and correctly localized. The edgy thriller score is credited to the team of Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans (The Autopsy of Jane Doe ), and it's better than the movie.

A Kind of Murder Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Warning! Spoilers abound.

• The Psychological Andy Goddard (1080p; 1.78:1; 10:39).



• The 60's Look (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:07).



• The Noirish Characters of A Kind of Murder (1080p; 1.78:1; 14:33).



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:24).



• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: Trailers for In Order of Disappearance, Detour, Officer Downe and The Eyes of My Mother, plus the usual promos for the Charity Network and AXS TV. These also play at startup.



• BD-Live: As of this writing, selecting this option produces the message "Check back later for updates".

A Kind of Murder Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Highsmith's novel supplied intriguing potential, and the cast of AKoM is certainly up to the task of conveying the characters' conflicted mentalities, but they are betrayed by a director who maroons them in surroundings that are pretty to look at but dramatically blurred. The Blu-ray's presentation is capable, but the film is a disappointment and worth a rental at most.