Synopsis
Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson, “Police Woman”) is a sexually-repressed housewife who seeks treatment from Dr. Robert Elliott (two-time Academy Award®-winner Michael Caine, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Cider House Rules). While secretly leaving a hotel after a one-night affair, Kate is mysteriously murdered by a tall blonde woman wearing sunglasses. The only witness is a high-priced call girl, Liz (Nancy Allen in a Golden Globe®-nominated performance), who becomes the killer’s next target. With the help of Kate’s grown son, Peter (Keith Gordon, A Midnight Clear), Liz discovers that the murderer is connected to Dr. Elliott, and the pair come face-to-face with a shocking surprise.
The best things about a De Palma film in the 70s and 80s is that he knew how to shape his characters and he knew how to keep the audience on the edge of their seats; with Dressed to Kill he did both beautifully. Harking back to the days of noir, De Palma managed to put together a spectacular mystery with Dressed to Kill. He successfully brought in characters, like Angie Dickinson’s Kate, and shaped the main storyline through her. Her unhappiness with her husband spiraled into an overall message of her unhappiness with her ‘wife’ role. The film relies heavily on people’s roles in life. Every little corner of the film you have people who fit a certain mold; Liz (Nancy Allen) is a prostitute, Caine’s character is a psychologist, Peter (Keith Gordon) is a computer wiz, and Dennis Franz character, shockingly enough, is a detective. The first time you meet each one you are introduced to their ‘solid’ roles in life. Knowing one’s role in life, in this film, is an important key to survival. What’s great, and something I’m not going to go into too much detail with, is that Angie Dickinson’s Kate is the only other character ‘confused’ of her role in life and is the only one very much lost. That has some sort of correlation with the killer.
Brilliant stuff.
Anyway, Brian De Palma and crew did a spectacular job with Dressed to Kill. While I think he went just a bit overboard on some occasions with the nudity (and let me just say, I’m a fan of nudity, but only if it belongs within the realm of the story), the movie still packs that Brian De Palma punch driven by an overwhelming amount of suspense and plenty of thrills to keep the blood moving. It’s not his best film of his career, but it certainly is in his top five in my opinion.
As for the Blu-ray, the visuals are good, but not great. I think Fox and MGM did a great job with the cleaning up the original, but in comparison to other films of that decade it can’t compare. Dressed to Kill has a large amount of whites/darks (kind of noir) and because of that it suffers from slight color banding, graininess and once in a blue moon artifacts. When the scenes in the film shift to the daytime the banding is gone and there is little to no graininess. It’s still better than its DVD counterpart, but it isn’t quite the quality of some other 80s films that have been given the HD upgrade.
On the flipside to that coin, the audio is darn good and treated very well. Full of suspense and plenty of moments of surprise, you’ll appreciate the 5.1 DTS-HD mastering job. One of the best scenes in the movie which just has one of the more breathtaking audio tracks is when Nancy Allen’s Liz first sees Angie Dickinson’s Kate in the elevator. The slow motion sequence mixed with the music will give you goosebumps.
As for the features, here’s what you should expect:
– The Making of Dressed to Kill
– Unrated, R-Rated and TV-Rated comparison
– Slashing Dressed to Kill
– An Appreciation by Keith Gordon
– Theatrical Trailer
While most of what you see has been shown before, the features on this Blu-ray are still very entertaining. You get to learn about what De Palma cut out of the film. You also learn about what went into making certain scenes like the Angie Dickinson shower scene at the beginning. The featurettes on this Blu-ray are great, it’s just too bad they couldn’t have been updated or commentary couldn’t have been included. Good stuff, though.