Product Details

• Actors: Guillermo Toledo, Mónica Cervera, Luis Varela, Enrique Villén, Fernando Tejero
• Directors: Álex de la Iglesia
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (DTS 5.1)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Tartan Video
• DVD Release Date: March 13, 2007
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000LPS3AI
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #20,603 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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• For more information about "The Perfect Crime (El Crimen Perfecto)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Rafael Gonzales (Guillermo Toledo) plays the consummate department store clerk in The Perfect Crime, a Spanish comedy about the cutthroat world of sales representatives clawing their way to the top. As an employee at Yeyo's, Rafael works in the women's department to maintain womanizing access to fellow hot female coworkers. While competing for a promotion, however, he accidentally kills his competitor, Don Antonio Fraguas (Luis Varela). Witness Lourdes (Monica Cervera), the ugliest woman at Yeyo's, demands sex with Rafael in exchange for keeping his crime secret. As Rafael grows frustrated with this blackmailing arrangement, the ghost of Don Antonio coaches him on how to kill his possessive accomplice. Director Alex de la Iglesia's satire about consumer culture and machismo manifests in Rafael as a love of nice suits and a fear of commitment. Rafael is a buffoon, stealing champagne and lobsters from Yeyo's grocery store, or seducing clerks in dressing rooms. Describing an underwear shopper as "strolling through lingerie like a deer in the undergrowth," Rafael reveals volumes about the kind of character Iglesia mocks. As in Glengarry Glen Ross, humor in The Perfect Crime is a bit morbid, especially when the two sales reps must cram Don Antonio's body into an incinerator. A well-written script, and characters who can turn potentially corny situations into smart black humor, make for pleasant viewing. --Trinie Dalton

Product Description

Spanish iconoclast Alex de Iglesia continues to toy with genre conventions in this black comedy, offering up his characteristic social commentary in a skewering of consumerist culture and the superficial values it perpetuates.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Retail Might Kill You--An Uproarious Black Comedy From Spain, November 19, 2006

By	K. Harris "Film aficionado" (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I had seen a preview for "Crimen Perfecto" in the theaters quite a while ago, and I thought it looked like a cute diversion. However, I was not prepared for this outrageously funny black comedy--it so far exceeded my expectations that I can't recommend it highly enough. Part sex romp, part macabre murder, part emotional blackmail, part supernatural, part retail satire--this one really covers a lot of ground in a very silly way. It's dark humor, sometimes mean-spirited, in the vein of perhaps "A Fish Called Wanda."

Rafael, played nicely by Guillermo Toledo, is a Department Store lothario. Manager of Women's Wear, he is working his way through the attractive sales staff. When a promotion to Floor Supervisor doesn't go his way, he is infuriated. Confronting his nemesis, who has received the job, an altercation ensues leaving the rival dead. But there's a witness. Homely Lourdes, a delightful Monica Cervera, helps him cover up the accident because she is secretly in love with Rafael. But this entwines them in the crime and in life.

The movie turns into a demented battle of wills and blackmail. Advised by the ghoulish specter of the dead man, Rafael plots to extricate himself from the clutches of an increasingly bizarre Lourdes. Played fast and loose, this is a laugh out loud comedy--but it's clever too. It's outrageous, but not dumb--a perfect balance of slapstick and wit. But it can be the blackest of humor as well--what with murder, dismemberment and more. And I loved the Department Store setting--anyone who has ever worked retail will appreciate the astute satire of this backdrop.

Not necessarily a classic, but a movie I will share with others--I'd rate this at about 4 1/2 stars for entertainment value. KGHarris, 11/06.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ferfect Black Comedy..., October 22, 2005

By	grendelgirl (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: El Crimen Ferpecto (The Perfect Crime) [Region 2] (DVD)

This is black comedy at its best! It is a cheerfully amoral movie from Spain about ambition, sex, power, and murder. Nearly all of the action takes place within a posh cosmopolitan department store.

Our narrator, Rafael, is a department salesman who reigns over the ladies' section like a self-satisfied despot. Women breathe a little heavier in his presence. All but one of his male co-workers are in complete awe of him; only dour fellow salesman Don Antonio openly disapproves of Rafael. The two men are competing for an upper management position, and Rafael is counting on his own considerable charisma to help him land the job.

But the competition between himself and his rival becomes increasingly intense. A scuffle in the men's dressing room ends with Rafael inadvertantly murdering Don Antonio. In a sweaty panic, he tries to cover his tracks and dispose of the body - only to discover that someone has beaten him to it!

That "someone" is Lourdes, a homely, clown-obsessed saleswoman with a sizable crush on Rafael. Lourdes is alternately threatening and needy towards Rafael, who must now simutaneously conspire with and appease her. It isn't long before he becomes more and more resentful of her attention and her ambitions. Soon Rafael is planning to murder Lourdes, too. He becomes more delusional as he becomes more walled in. In some of the funniest scenes, the murdered Don Antonio reappears as a sympathetic ghost, ready to help the increasingly desperate Rafael carry out her murder.

Rafael's cocky narration and self-serving philosophies are hilarious. So are his attempts to reign in Lourdes' touchy affection, knowing that a wrong move on his part can send her running to the police to incriminate him. Best of all are the increasingly absurd situations that center around the disposal of Don Antonio's dead body, as Rafael tries to understand whether the murdered body or Lourdes herself poses the greater threat. I don't think I've laughed so much during a movie in years. It's that good!

5.0 out of 5 stars A must see - don't miss the black, twisted vision of writer/Director (and producer!) Álex de la Iglesia, July 7, 2009

By	Andy Orrock (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

We'd seen the trailer for "The Perfect Crime" when this was in the theaters. We passed it by then and saved it for DVD. Now, I'm kicking myself for not seeing it in the theater. Oh, how the US trailer misleads you on this black, black, blackest of comedies. The Spanish trailer nails the dark essence of the film; the US trailer tried to pass it off as lighter fare. Don't believe it: rent or buy this movie as soon as you possibly can and revel in twisted vision of writer/director (and producer!) Álex de la Iglesia.

Star Guillermo Toledo is awesome here - his swagger and brio at the film' outset and well into the first hour is breathtaking. You're taken aback when you find out that this man who you think must be at the pinnacle of his profession is, in fact, manager of the women's clothes department at Yeyo's (a Macy's-like entity). But that's just it: de la Iglesia's direction and take is that Guillermo's Rafael_is_ at the peak. And why wouldn't you think that when you're surrounded by Spain's most beautiful actresses like Penélope Velasco, Kira Miró and Montserrat Mostaza as your adoring staff?

But, oh, how Rafa's life takes a turn for the worse. An unfortunate turn of events and an even more unfortunate (for Rafa's sake) witness to those events (in the form of a outstanding performance by Mónica Cervera) serve to bring his highly confident days to a slow and crushing end.

Though the film changes dramatically from beginning to end, the one constant is the excellence of Guillermo Toledo. It's an astounding performance. I can't recommend this movie highly enough.

Oh - let me be another to add that the movie loses a bit in the translation of the title to English: the original Spanish language release is "El Crimen Ferpecto" - note the transposed 'f' and 'p'. It's a joke within the movie - Rafael is renting the Spanish-dubbed release of the 1928 film ("The Perfect Crime" - the real one!) and the register rings up the film with the incorrect name. Guillermo is so deranged at the time (he's spiraling down pretty good at that point) that the error drives him to distraction.