Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

If I were dissatisfied with my marriage and Michael Caine was my therapist, I'd probably have a crush on him. Apparently, Angie Dickinson agrees with me, for in Dressed to Kill, she hits on him during a session. She's married to Keith Gordon, and dislikes many aspects of their marriage, including their bedroom activities. When Michael rebuffs her advances, she looks elsewhere.Dressed to Kill, while completely earning its R rating—it was originally rated X before certain elements were cut—is a very fun thriller. Depending on how comfortable you are in your relationship, this might be a good pick to watch during your steamy movie night. Brian De Palma's script will keep you guessing from start to finish, and you'll be on the edge of your seat once the serial killer makes an appearance and bodies start dropping. It can be pretty scary at times, but if you like this type of movie, it's a really great one. I'm a bit of a lightweight when it comes to scary movies, but I'm also a huge Michael Caine fan, so I ended up liking it.Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to graphic nudity, sex scenes, and violence, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

Brian DePalma was born four days after Dario Argento on 11th September 1940, but they could have been separated at birth; and for those familiar with DePalma's work that would make you think of 'Sisters' (1973), a film that has a lot more to do with Hitchcock (an obvious influence on both their work), than with Argento in particular. The similarities come from an idiosyncratic assimilation of Hitchcock rather than from seeing and copying each other's work. Both directors like the 'Master' are relentless fetishists. I do find it hard to imagine DePalma's cinema without Argento's; 'Body Double' (1984), and 'Raising Cain' (1992) have grown out of 'Tenebre' (1982). Argento is a modernist rather than the more fashionable postmodern, and like Ingmar Bergman or John Ford he falls in and out of fashion with critics and the public. He has influenced his 'apprentices' Luigi Cozzi, Michele Soavi and Lamberto Bava; but he has also touched more celebrated filmmakers like John Carpenter (think 1978's 'Halloween'), Wes Craven, Takeshi Miike (Argento is 'big in Japan'), John Woo, David Fincher, and Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar. But with DePalma the influence runs a lot deeper… even the word Doppelganger could be considered, but I'm not sure who you would point the finger at as being the unfortunate one. For all their similarities though, you can compare DePalma to Godard (most obviously with 'Greetings' (1968), and 'Hi, Mom!' (1970), and Godard has written of his admiration for DePalma's 'The Fury' 1978), whereas you can't easily compare Argento to Godard. It is helpful to think of DePalma as a jazz musician riffing on themes, his favourite pieces to riff on being 'Vertigo' and 'Psycho'. Familiar with 'Giallo,' he rarely cites them as influences (he claims to despise Argento's films). DePalma's dreamlike tangle of memory and desire owes less to Hitchcock than to the psychological 'Giallo' of Argento, and the baroque set pieces and sociopathic gender games of 'Dressed to Kill' and 'Body Double' scream Argento, but it's 'Raising Cain's' finale that completes the deal. A woman bends over to pick up her child, revealing the killer standing directly behind her, a scene straight out of 'Tenebrae'.'Dressed to Kill' could easily be described as a 'Giallo,' as DePalma pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable and in good taste (with mainstream cinema). 'Dressed To Kill' was a film that was released at the right time; post- Stonewall, post-feminist, post-disco, post-Son of Sam, pre-AIDS. However as controversial as DePalma wanted to be, 'Dressed to Kill' only has the whiff of cheap perfume compared to the pungent odor of its contemporaries of the grindhouse; William Lustig's 'Maniac' (1980), and Abel Ferrara's 'Ms. 45' (1981). Even another film from the big end of town, William Friedkin's 'Cruising' (1980), which DePalma had for a time been attached to was more controversial and sleazy; yet 'Dressed To Kill' shocked because more people saw it. DePalma uses paperback pulp psychology (pure 'Giallo'), to demonstrate that filmmaking is an inherently 'visual' storytelling medium. It is clear he is always more at home with scenes free of dialogue; the characters speak in pure soap opera exposition.The opening 'shower scene' establishes the theme; Kate is in the shower masturbating whilst watching probably her husband shaving; it's DePalma's 'thing', linking sexual stimulation to voyeurism. Hands clutch her from behind and she screams. Looking, pleasuring, violating. The sound design connects the next scene, where Kate is in bed moaning with 'ersatz' pleasure; talk radio dominates the soundtrack rather than a lush romantic musical score, and a high-angle shot fixes on the faceless husband and Kate's unfulfilled expression. Later, when she attempts to 'come on' to her shrink, the Doctor advises her to confront her husband about her anxieties. Before doing this, Kate visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art with nothing more on her mind than a shopping list (an inspired touch), and links up with a mysterious stranger. Following a hot and sweaty seduction in the back seat of a cab, she goes back to his apartment for a game of post-office. Immediately after, she is confronted by a mysterious blonde with a 'Giallo' like shiny straight razor. As Hitchcock had done audaciously in 'Psycho', DePalma does the unthinkable in the first act killing the woman we had assumed was the heroine. It's a dangerous trick, as the audience now has to reach out to new characters, Liz and Peter as the film starts again. Like Marcus in Argento's 'Deep Red', Liz (a prostitute, an outsider) must do the detective work.As with Argento, DePalma likes set-pieces featuring long takes with a mobile camera, and for DePalma in 'Dressed To Kill' it's the Metropolitan Museum of Art sequence. DePalma's obsessively moody overwrought sequence is a slice of the purest melodramatic overkill. DePalma's timing of Kate's impulses with the unreal ambiance and heightened emotion is overplayed to absurdity. Technically DePalma is as accomplished as ever.The Italian Argento, coming from a Catholic background, is at home with the torments of repression and guilt and the horrors they can produce. DePalma (from Newark with an Italian American Catholic background… but attended Protestant and Quaker schools), embraces the hang-ups triggered by the liberation of a 'permissive' society. 'Dressed To Kill' celebrates the allure of perversion and desire, and the guilt that can create.The mistaken identity conceit is something DePalma had explored in 'Sisters' and 'Obsession' (1976), and would be revisited in 'Body Double' (1984), though all of this originates with Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' (1958). The cross- dressing and shower traumas are clearly from 'Psycho', as is the clinical explanation that ends proceedings. Always full of self-confidence, in the finale DePalma references 'Sisters' and the 'Carrie' (1976) dream and shock ending, it also hearkens back to the opening of 'Halloween' and prefigures its own parody, 'Blow Out' (1981).

'Dressed to Kill' for me is one of the prime examples of a film which doesn't really make you think a lot, but has numerous individual scenes which leave you in awe because of the masterful filmmaking on show. Anyone who has seen a few films from the past will be able to figure out that the spirit of Alfred Hitchcock looms large over pretty much every minute of this film apart from some other influences like Dario Argento and other Italian suspense filmmakers of the 70s.Let me first point out the aspects of the film that I loved:1. Angie Dickinson and Michael Caine are very good. Dickinson is supposed to portray a sexually frustrated wife who can't help but crave constant sexual fantasies. She does it very well. Her acting has a lot to do with her facial gestures and expressions because a lot of her scenes have very few words. Caine on the other hand is fascinating as the psychiatrist who always remains mysterious. He is a character that one can't really figure out and Caine brings the complexity out brilliantly.2. De Palma shows here why he is a masterful technician. He uses all his film school knowledge and influences to the core. We see long extended takes, a number of tracking shots, the juxtaposition of saturated colours in the rest of the film with the darkness in some crucial scenes, the use of split diopter shots and split screens,etc. Anyone who loves the craft of filmmaking will find the film a very exciting watch due to the various techniques being used. 3. The soundtrack for the film composed by Pino Donaggio is great. The main theme is beautiful.4. The famous Art Museum scene has to be given a special mention although it is just a further representation of De Palma's masterful filmmaking. It takes a brilliant director to have the capacity to execute a wordless scene like this. A whole plethora of emotions and numerous changes in mood are conveyed just through the camera work, editing and Angie Dickinson's facial acting. 5. Lastly, I'll say that 'Dressed to Kill' still offers a fun, engaging film watching experience to anyone. It is well directed and the 104 minutes run time just flows by.Let's come to what didn't work for me:1. I have already mentioned that this film is heavily influenced by Hitchcock's work. It is impossible to not get constantly reminded of 'Psycho' and to some extent of 'Vertigo', but that's also the problem here. The ideas that were present in Hitchcock's films were well explored by him that made the films thematically deep. 'Dressed to Kill' however in a way comes across as a film that wants to be Hitchcock-esque, but fails in exploring its ideas as well as Hitchcock did. The film really isn't about anything. There are certain ideas present in the film, but De Palma doesn't really seem interested in exploring them. The overt similarities with Hitchcock's scenes to some extent bring out the shortcomings in De Palma's ability to add layers and depth to the story.2. Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon and Dennis Franz didn't really impress me with their performances. I unfortunately found their performances to be a little artificial.3. The film for the most part remains sensual and sexy in a tasteful way. However there are two scenes in particular in the film which unfortunately looked a bit distasteful and sort of exploitative and this is something that also bugged me while watching 'Carrie'.So overall I found the film engaging and well made. One has to acknowledge De Palma's filmmaking prowess. However there are some glaring flaws in the film too which prevent it from making the transition from good to great. The style is brilliant, but the substance, not so much.

Clearly one of the most classic 1980 films is that of Brian De Palma's "Dressed to Kill" it's an interesting and well acted and simply shot suspense thriller that teases with drama and murder all while blending sex and skin in so well it's really an eye candy treat! The pace of the film is fast and fever pitch from start to finish keeping you the viewer on edge and guessing only to be thrown for a twist and a shock by the end of the picture.Set in New York city in Manhattan the story begins with Kate Miller(the bold and near perfect Angie Dickinson)as a middle age housewife who has problems she's sexually frustrated as her husband can't get it right in bed and her only son is a computer and book nerd named Peter(Keith Gordon)who wants to explore more. So one afternoon before lunch after Kate has a session with her psychiatrist Dr. Elliott(the in top form Michael Caine)she decides to end the afternoon at the city art museum only does she later find out that it will end for good for her! As it's after meeting a mystery type looking guy she follows him to his taxi then to the apartment for a one night stand type of affair, then slowly but surely the film starts to take twist and turns after Kate's life ends some of the characters are connected others are hard to get a read on as no one is who they seem.Now enter Liz Blake(the sexy Nancy Allen)who's a high priced call girl escort type who's at the apartment complex and is a witness to the murder of Kate as she lay in blood on the elevator soon one by one or little by little the pieces start to come together or do they this picture is like a jigsaw puzzle that throws you for a loop. Really it's a thrilling interest as the mystery blonde woman is not really what it seems to be! Plus the movie and film is blended and spiced up nice with plenty of sex and skin and most of it is carried by the sexy performance of Nancy Allen as she rocks it up as call girl Liz as the scene where she strips down to her black bra and panties is some great eye candy! Overall "Dressed to Kill" is one fun sexual thrill tease of suspense and twist a maze of complex obsession, deceit and emotional bloody drama of skin and murder as it's really like an identity nightmare for everyone involved. Really this is one memorable classic to see and it's enjoyable to watch many times over.