ANTHONY HOPKINS is the mentally agile lawyer who is continually thinking up ways to get rid of his wife, the fashionable and elegant BLYTHE DANNER. Evidently, their stormy marriage is at a breaking point and he decides he must plot her demise rather than go through with a messy divorce.
But what follows has enough plot turns to hold your interest, although the device of having Hopkins weigh all considerations against a trial lawyer (Hopkins in a dual role) gets a little tiresome after awhile. Not that he isn't a compelling actor whether playing the lawyer or the prosecutor, and he does create sympathy for a very detestable man.
The plot takes quite a surprising turn when SWOOSIE KURTZ shows up as his mistress, another very calculating character who has some surprises of her own to throw into the mix.
It all has the feel of a poor man's DIAL M FOR MURDER, showing its TV origins within some narrow settings. But you have to give credit to the writers who keep the tale spinning right until the sudden finish.
The cat-and-mouse byplay between husband and wife is reminiscent of the sort of banter between Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine in SLEUTH, but the overall result is not quite as clever.
