Alicia I love this movie so much

Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

gab-14712 What do you get when you combine Alfred Hitchcock and a thriller suspense story from the 1980's? Well, you would get 1980's thriller Dressed to Kill. From the beginning, you can tell that director Brian De Palma was trying to emulate Alfred Hitchcock's films of old. Many young filmmakers at the time tried to make films with a Hitchcock influence, but many of them failed. However, Dressed to Kill mostly succeeded in creating a "Hitchcock" film. According to famed critic Roger Ebert, "He (De Palma) places his emphasis on the same things that obsessed Hitchcock: precise camera movements, meticulously selected visual movements, characters seen as types rather than personalities, and violence as a sudden interruption of the most mundane situations." While the movie may not be peak Hitchcock, we get have an entertaining thriller that is violent, engaging, and surprisingly effective.My first thought of the movie was that it is a strangely erotic movie. In all honesty, it is really a softcore porn movie, at least that is what it felt like to me. It is a movie that pushes sex up to the top and then some. It does star some respectable Hollywood actors and a well-loved director, so at least the names give the movie legitimacy. Let me tell you why I believed this film was a porno at first. Just listen to the plot. There is this middle-aged woman named Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) who is frustrated with her sexual life. She goes to a therapist named Dr. Robert Elliot (Michael Caine) to help her through her crisis. After a session with the therapist, she randomly meets this guy at a museum and they have sex. After she finds out he has a STD, she leaves hastily. The problem is that she forgets her wedding ring. As she goes back to retrieve her ring, she is brutally murdered with a razor. Now there are all sorts of problems as everyone tries to track down the killer.I thought the performances were solid ones. The big name here is Michael Caine. He does wonderful in all his films, and there is no difference here. His character is very charismatic, but there is a hint of darkness hidden behind the charisma, and that interested me because I am used to Michael Caine playing a beloved, helpful good guy. Angie Dickinson gave a solid performance as the sexually-deprived housewife. I am still on the fence about Nancy Allen's performance. She played a high-class prostitute named Liz Blake and was named the only suspect for the murder. Her performance went over-the-top at times, a little more than I was comfortable with. It's funny because she was nominated both for a Golden Globe and a Razzie for her performance.One important thing to note about the movie is that it is not pushed forward narratively. De Palma and writer George Litto made this film more of a stylistic one. Also, certain themes we look at today were looked at differently thirty-seven years ago. The movie has a strange way in using transsexuality and schizophrenia to build the case for the homicidal maniac seen killing people in the movie. There are plot issues at hand, but plot is not the strongest suit of the film. It is all about the shocker value that is effectively delivered.Dressed to Kill is an interesting movie to say the least. It's an erotic thriller that follows the footsteps of earlier Hitchcock movies. But one thing to note is that it is not a Hitchcock film, but De Palma comes very close in recreating one. The film is suspenseful, thrilling, and there are what seems to be an indefinite amount of twists and turns. If anything, you get to see Michael Caine deliver a performance outside of his wheelhouse.My Grade: B

Leofwine_draca Brian De Palma here directs another above-average thriller dealing with his principal interests of sex and violence, in his own flamboyant and inimitable style. All of the things you expect from a good De Palma film are here, from the fluid and interesting use of the camera which gives the film a classy visual look, to the elegant music by Pina Donnagio, to the Hitchcock references. Here, it's PSYCHO, with supposed heroine Angie Dickinson, a middle-aged housewife with a problematic sex life, who becomes drawn into a storyline involving a killer.De Palma shows a total understanding of the elements required to make a gripping thriller in this movie and he does everything right. Not least of which is assembling a solid and proficient cast, highlighted by Michael Caine's twitchy turn as a psychiatrist with a dark secret of his own. Fine too, is Dickinson as the bored housewife, around whose sex life much of the film is centred. De Palma enjoys playing with Dickinson's character, twisting her around so that a moment of joy becomes a moment of horror as she learns that a man she has just slept with has a venereal disease. Nancy Allen turns up as the classy prostitute with a heart, who finds herself stalked by the killer in some suspenseful sequences (the best of which is at a train station - something about De Palma and train stations is just right). Smaller parts are taken by Keith Gordon as the young, brainy hero, and Dennis Franz, who adopts the cop-you-love-to-hate type role which he would recreate throughout much of his later career.Highlights in the film for me include an excellent cat-and-mouse game in an art gallery as Dickinson attempts to snag a prospective lover; the aforementioned train sequence in which Allen is chased by both a gang of thugs and the killer; and of course the taut lift sequence. The violence is bloody and brutal without being over the top, and a strong sexual undercurrent runs throughout the movie, occasionally erupting into the aforementioned violence with a lot of power. De Palma can't resist inserting one final shock/dream sequence at the end, either, which rounds things off nicely. Although his repeated camera tricks sometimes work against him (the split-screen, for instance, isn't as effective here as in CARRIE, making the screen muddled instead of exciting), DRESSED TO KILL still stands as a solid, powerful thriller made at the height of De Palma's career.

secondtake Dressed to Kill (1980)A nifty little thriller. The opening shower scene with Angie Dickinson showing all to the world was something of a sensation at the time, but I don't know that it makes much sense to the movie. It's all for the starved men in the audience, or maybe for the audaciousness of it, to let you know that this is going to be a stylized, almost fun, thriller.And it is fun! De Palma is a director who knows how to needle the viewer. His fans like being needled, I think (or like knowing that other people are being needled). Examples abound—"Carrie" and "Body Double" come to mind—where the sensational plot is partly an excuse to unleash some good old male voyeurism and sexism. Which is why the movies work so well for a certain audience.And they are well made, certainly, and edited with a clipped economy. "Dressed to Kill" has the advantage of Michael Caine in a leading role (though underused, for a two hour film). The rest of the cast is mediocre, frankly, holding up the character types needed for the main conflict.Oh, if you have any feelings for transgender issues, this movie will only reinforce the old stereotype that people with mixed or cross gender issues are sick and need help. Too bad, and shame on you, Mr. De Palma, for perpetuating that kind of thing. 35 years later, I know, but really.Final word—there are many brilliantly made sections of the movie, including a long stretch near the start in the museum that is a kind of hyped up Hitchcock style ("Vertigo"). Indeed, Hitchcock is being made love to all along here —"Psycho" with this movie's main character's double nature, and even "Rear Window" with the peering through windows. Which makes it a movie very much worth seeing. Caveats in place.

Predrag The 'Pure Cinema' approach deployed here also evokes the best work of Dario Argento, though De Palma clearly has his own agenda. His script attends the fall-out from a terrifying attack on a frustrated housewife (Angie Dickinson) by a razor-wielding maniac who then turns his/her attentions to the sole witness, a streetwise hooker (Nancy Allen) who teams up with Dickinson's teenage son (Keith Gordon) when she becomes a suspect in the case.After a slow first 25 minutes, Dressed to Kill is filled with unbearable suspense for the next 75 minutes. The last 3 minutes of the film are particularly nerve wracking. There are so many great suspense sequences that work throughout the entire film, all the way from the elevator scene to a chase into the subway. Those scenes should give any viewer a good scare. It's certainly what one would describe as edge-of-your seat suspense. I know those sequences freaked me out, and those last few minutes in the film is a true heart-pounding nerve jangler. This is what De Palma is good at and he should make more films like this.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.