Patrick Wilson is a two-time Tony Award winner who bears, at certain angles, a resemblance to Paul Newman. He has enjoyed a very good career. But if he doesn't stay away from films like this, I fear for him.

"A Kind of Murder" takes place in 1960 and actually begins in a movie theater where "Butterfield 8" is being shown. A Chevrolet commercial can be heard from the screen; I'm not familiar enough with the film to say it took place in the movie, nor am I aware of commercials being shown in theaters, but I found it odd.

The story concerns two men, architect and some time writer Walter Stackhouse (Wilson) and a bookstore owner, Marty Kimmel (Eddie Marsan). Kimmel's wife is murdered and found near a tavern, and an aggressive cop, Laurence Corby (Vincent Kartheiser) is positive Kimmel is the killer. However, a young man has given him an alibi - he and Kimmel were both in the theater to see Butterfield 8 at the same time.

Then Walter's wife Clara (Jessica Biel), a beautiful but deeply disturbed and unhappy woman, winds up dead in the same location. Both women had taken the same bus, which stopped near the tavern. Walter, tired of Clara being neurotic, had told her he wanted a divorce. She threatened suicide, then left abruptly to be with her sick mother.

Detective Corby harasses both men mercilessly, and when he finds out that Stackhouse has clippings of the Kimmel murder as a resource for the writing he does on the side, he doubles up the harassment.

I'm not sure why this was set in 1960 except that it was based on a Patricia Highsmith novel probably written then. I wonder if the screenwriter (or Highsmith) realized that the Fourth Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1790 so that Corby could not have walked into Stackhouse's home and started going through his house without a warrant. And what idiots allow such harassment and never retain an attorney?

The film had some atmosphere but was slow and dull. It took forever to get to the plot. Now, modern screen writing demands this. I have no problem waiting for the point of the movie if the film is moving along. This one didn't.

Patricia Highsmith was a wonderful mystery writer, but she wasn't perfect. I haven't read her novel but somehow I feel it had to have been better than this.