Slight Case Of Murder (DVD)

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As you can guess, the movie is a spoof of old film-noir mysteries. Thorpe even lectures on the subject of film noir to a college class he's teaching, telling his students that the hero of a noir is not a bad man; he's basically "a good man tripped up by fate." That's Thorpe himself. The more he lies, the deeper he gets in dirt. The film furthers the noir tone with a 1940s' style music track, a bevy of colorful and shady minor characters, and some snappy, Raymond Chandler-like dialogue: "This guy's harder to lose than a bladder infection."

At the same time the movie is paying homage to old-fashioned noirs, it is also an exercise in reflexive, self-referential postmodernism (say that ten times fast). Every two minutes we get an allusion to something in film or literature, from "Gaslight" to "Laura," from "Ferris Bueller" (Macy very often faces the camera and speaks directly to the audience) to "Arsenic and Old Lace." Even actor/director Paul Mazursky shows up playing, what else, a movie director.

If the movie has a major fault, it's that it gets much too silly, much too improbable, and much too far-fetched much too quickly for a film that is supposedly only gently ribbing the noir genre. At one point I thought I was watching Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run," it's so obvious.

Still, taken for what it is, a rather inconsequential television comedy, "A Slight Case of Murder" is quite good. Compared to a more substantial big-screen product, it shows its origins as a rather talky, formulaic work, designed for a commercial break every ten minutes. Still, it's got William H. Macy in it, and he's always enjoyable, as is James Cromwell, Felicity Huffman, and the others. For me, it was worth the watch.

Video:
Considering that the Turner Network originally made this film for television, the 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen picture is excellent. Even though the detailing may not be high-definition caliber and facial tones can vary somewhat from quite natural to oddly off-kilter, the overall video quality is bright and clear, with hardly a trace of anything that might distract the eye.

Audio:
Like the picture quality, the Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo is very clean. Beyond that and the fact that the audio appears well balanced from top to bottom, there isn't much else to say. It sounds like good monaural, with very little activity in either the left or right front channels or the surrounds. To say that the sound is not very dramatic would be putting it mildly. But it does its job efficiently, and it carries out dialogue, which is 99% of its work, effectively. Just don't ask any more of it.

Extras:
Nothing much here; it was a television production, after all. There is a main menu with twenty-two scene selections, but no chapter insert; there is Engish as the only spoken language; and there are French and Spanish subtitles. Other than that, enjoy the movie.

Parting Thoughts:
It's hard not to find "A Slight Case of Murder" lightly entertaining, as it is the very definition of light entertainment. It's clearly Macy's movie all the way, co-written and starring the man in a story that specially fits his personality. The movie is humorous, if a tad slow; clever, if a touch clichéd; suspenseful, if a bit preposterous. If you're a William H. Macy fan, you'll love the film; if you're not, you still might find it amusing.

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