Crimen ferpecto
written by Álex de la Iglesia and Jorge Guerricaechevarría
directed by Álex de la Iglesia

       Crimen ferpecto is so mishandled that it is fitting for Vitagraph to overlook the significance of the title. In the handling of American distribution for the Spanish black comedy, they have changed the name to El Crimen Perfecto (Perfect Crime) and subsequently downsized one of its most amusing gags. Yes, there are some very funny moments in Álex de la Iglesia’s Goya-nominated picture, but there are far too many missed opportunities and misdirected performances to consider the effort more than a second-rate farce.

          The movie opens with a prologue as dispensable as Shakespeare’s inexplicable induction from Taming of the Shrew before jumping into a fast-paced narration by Guillermo Toledo, effectively sleazy as Rafael, a department store Don Juan with a reputation for bedding his employees that exceeds his distinction as a great salesman. After being passed over for a promotion offered instead to his rival, who then fires the presumptuous hot shot, Rafael becomes irate and accidentally impales the nemesis on a dressing-room hook.

          The awkwardness of Toledo in this fight scene begins the display of his inabilities as a physical actor. That his role continually calls for camp shtick and slapstick, neither of which he appears to have adequate talent for, disappoints by overshadowing his remarkable capability for playing the cocky balance of victim and villain that otherwise makes his character so much fun. The inclusion of physical comedy is not out of place with the film’s tone, but de la Iglesia’s insistent angles on such silliness combined with the actors’ forced execution results in distracting self-regard.

         Although the accidental-death cover-up routine has always been exhausted and corpse humor wore out its welcome long ago with Weekend at Bernie’s, the common setup becomes a mere plot device for brighter ideas. As per the custom of the genre, there is a witness who blackmails Rafael: Lourdes (Mónica Cervera), the ugly duckling of the women’s department and lone exception to his sexual conquest over the staff, cons her way into a relationship and a career advancement as the caper becomes a clever satire of the veiled extortions often found in marriage and business. Eventually Rafael concludes that the only way out of his predicament is more death, whether it be hers or his own.

         As Lourdes, Cervera too performs sufficiently, but she brings little to the role other than appearance and obvious interpretation of the character. The same goes for Luis Varela as the murdered floor manager who’s ghost occasionally pops up to torment Rafael’s conscience, and all the minor characters who could have added much humor had they been so bold. The movie works on the written scenarios and concepts alone but without any further augmentation from the cast, and not just going over-the-top as some of them do anyway, it has an assumptive dependence on the audience to laugh at something because it is supposed to be funny. Whenever Varela abruptly appears with a butcher’s knife in his head, for instance, there seems to be room for a laugh track.

         The title becomes relevant when Rafael, looking for inspiration, buys a copy of Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, which is known in Spain as Crimen perfecto. During checkout, though, the seemingly dyslexic register scans the title as Crimen ferpecto, hinting of the imperfect outcome of such crimes. Unintentionally the title also applies to the faultiness of the film. Were it more remarkable, it could have been perfect.

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