Find an ingenious way to account for being elsewhere at the time of the murder. Preferably not a human one, as humans have a nasty habit of squealing when pressed by the po-po. Familial murders always end in a conviction. Firstly because you’ll later regret it – no matter how much the cantankerous old bag deserved it. Killing family members is wrong on many levels.
Lose the body – for good – and the odds are stacked overwhelmingly in your favour. There have only been five successful murder convictions in Scotland where a body was never recovered. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year, but one day – possibly the same day you’re caught ball-deep in the au pair – they will dob you in and it’ll serve you right. If you breathe so much as a word to your spouse, they will stick you in. Do your job right and they won’t be talking to anyone. Murder is performed on a need to know basis and the only person who needs to know is you and the victim. A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think that of me? No! I am the one who knocks!” – Heisenberg
#PERFECT MURDER MOVIE FULL#
Should you treat the bathtub with water repellent before going full Heisenberg? What if your car breaks down? What if the GPS in your sat-nav gives you away? If you get flashed by traffic cops, will you pull over and sweat it out or speed off into the distance? If you haven’t rehearsed your plan, your contingency plan and your backup contingency plan, don’t be surprised when you spaghetti at the first sign of danger. Don’t just plan your alibi: perfect every last detail and account for every possible eventuality, no matter how remote. The beautiful thing about premeditated murder is that you get to premeditate it. Otherwise, the greatest victim will be yourself. Murder is wrong, but if you really, absolutely must kill someone, the important thing is that you leave no evidence.
#PERFECT MURDER MOVIE HOW TO#
#YOLO.įrom the people who brought you How to Take Coke in Public and How to Get Drunk With Your Mouth Shut, this is Ed Uncovered’s definitive guide to murder: how to do it and how to get away with it. But when it does happen, you have to get it right.
Like the Heimlich manoeuvre, murder should only be used as a last resort. In classic Hollywood, morally redemptive conclusions were mandated to show that crime doesn’t pay, while certain directors – like Stanley Kubrick and John Huston – believed that perfection of any kind is incompatible with the avarice and deceit of humanity.“Soldiers kill other soldiers…everyone involved knows the stakes and if you are going to accept those stakes, you’ve got to do certain things. Of course, the irony of the perfect crime in movies is that it’s rarely ever perfect. For others, such as the chancers cheating and stealing their way to a better life in 1940s noir, the perfect crime turns lust and greed into quick bucks.Įach of the recommendations included here is available to view in the UK. They take as much satisfaction from proving it can be done as from the loot at the end of it. However, his perfect crime soon turns into ironic tragedy when he realises he has left a vital piece of evidence behind, yet finds himself trapped in a lift and powerless to influence his own fate.įor cerebral criminals like Julien, committing the perfect crime is an intellectual exercise, which challenges their own skilfulness.
Julien Tavernier ( Maurice Ronet) plans the murder of his boss, an arms manufacture who is also married to his lover ( Jeanne Moreau). Louis Malle’s Lift to the Scaffold (1958) promises all such vicarious pleasures. Its enduring appeal can be put down to the fascinating expertise of the criminals who believe they can slip by undetected, the complicity the audience feels in being party to their fastidious planning, and the final sensation of leaving the cinema thrilled, and knowing that you (at least) have got away with it. One of the great themes of the crime film is the idea of the perfect crime.