The Perfect Crime (2004)

(Originally released as Crimen Ferpecto)

Starring: Guillermo Toledo, Monica Cervera, Luis Varela, Enrique Villen, Fernando Tejero, Javier Gutierrez

First, the Lowdown: A suave floor manager is blackmailed into submission after killing his boss.

If there’s one thing Rafael knows how to do, it’s how to work people. It’s why he’s been so very successful as the manager of the ladies wear section in the department store he works in (and equally successful with seducing the female staff members that work under him – so to speak.) Rafael’s philosophy in life is that as long as he has a goal to aim for, the rest is merely details. Thusly, his current goal is to be floor manager: a prestigious job that not only will bump up his salary, but gives an additional commission on total floor sales, stock options, even a change to rub elbows with the store’s board of directors.

His competition for the job, however is Antonio: the menswear manager with a sour demeanor and worse toupee (not to mention questionable motives as to WHY he likes menswear so much.) Antonio is very much the foil to Rafael: where Rafael is free, easy-going, and lackadaisical about store policies, Antonio is strict, rule-abiding, and authoritarian to a fault.

In spite of their differences in beliefs, both men are excellent salesmen. As such, the board of directors has decided to fill the newly opened floor manager position to whoever has the strongest sales. After completing a 12,000 Euro sale of a fancy fur coat, Rafael has the position in the bag.

Or so he thinks. Apparently, the lady who purchased that fur coat overestimated what was in her checking account, and her check bounced! Antonio is immediately promoted to floor manager and his first action in his new position is to assign every single menial task he can think of to Rafael. To make matters worse, Antonio announces that Rafael is now transferred from ladies wear to big & tall. The final straw comes when Rafael sees the woman whose check bounced returning the coat, and he dresses her down in front of the whole store. This prospect delights Antonio to no end, for now he is able to fire Rafael! Before he has a change to hand his subordinate his walking papers, the pair argue in the changing rooms. The argument escalates into a full-blown fight where Antonio tries to claw open Rafael’s throat with a wire hanger. However, fighting in closed quarters is risky business and while trying to disengage, Rafael mistakenly impales his boss’s head on the back of a hook.

Rafael is thoroughly panicked now – no one is going to believe that he accidentally killed his boss (who he never got along with and frequently fought with). So he hides himself and the corpse in the store and waits until it closes for the evening. Rafael concludes that the best place to dispose of the body is in the furnace in the basement – unfortunately, Antonio’s body is too large to shove in the door to it. After scrambling to find a hatchet to cut the body up with, Rafael discovers that the body is missing! The next day, Rafael tries acting like nothing has happened (and isn’t doing a terribly good job at it) when he gets a note from mysterious stranger saying that everything has been taken care of. Rafael finds out that Lourdes, an average-looking salesgirl from a different department (who has been secretly crushing on him) not only wrote the message, but helps him dispose of the body! However, such things come at a price, and what seems reasonable to Rafael at first quickly blows out of proportion.

I’m always amazed how what can seem like a pretty pedestrian comedy can be improved just a little bit by changing its location. Maybe it’s my unfamiliarity with Spanish culture, but I know that if this movie were made here it would’ve starred Dane Cook and Alison Hannigan and probably made it so that the suave lothario and manipulative mouse would’ve seen past their differences and embraced their “inner beauty”. (Insert the sound of my eyes rolling here.) What made the film enjoyable for me is that none of the major characters pull any punches, even though it takes a while for one of them to finally do so. Weirdly enough, there are a couple of shots that are rather artfully done for what is otherwise a slapstick comedy. (For example: As Rafael buys a raincoat from a small shop, the camera pulls back to reveal that he’s been tailed by Lourdes who is waiting in a taxi, then pulls back further to reveal that SHE has been tailed by a policeman in a different car.)

Line of the movie: “Life is absurd. Even worse – absurd and stupid.”

Three and a half stars. Remember your hat.