* HilariousInHindsight: The film is a remake of an Creator/AlfredHitchcock film, ''Film/DialMForMurder''. Emily's mother is played by Creator/ConstanceTowers, whose husband was Creator/JohnGavin, a supporting actor in [[Film/{{Psycho}} one of Hitchcock's films]].
* LampshadeHanging: When Steven is running David through his plot to kill Emily, David asks Steven why he doesn't just make a copy of the house key instead of stealing Emily's. Steven says this leaves "loose ends", even though a key can be copied at any hardware store with no questions asked and no paper trail. When we see the key it's a regular house key with no "do not duplicate" marking. Emily's missing key was necessary to move to plot forward, so that's why.
* MagnificentBastard: [[CrazyJealousGuy Steven Taylor]] schemes to [[TilMurderDoUsPart murder his wife]] and get off completely scot-free as both revenge for her cheating on him, and to gain access to her trust fund worth millions. Upon discovering his wife Emily's infidelity, Steven {{blackmail}}s and bribes her lover David into assisting him in killing her before creating multiple alibis for himself on the night his brilliant plan goes into motion. When David [[SpannerInTheWorks bungles the otherwise airtight plan]] by hiring a petty crook to kill Emily, Steven quickly and cleverly stays on top of the situation, manipulating both Emily and the police into suspecting it was a mere robbery gone wrong, and, even as David reveals he has proof of Steven's plans so as to blackmail him into paying David, Steven seemingly gives in only to murder David and get away with all of his money. Steven planned several contingencies on the chance his scheme went awry, rarely loses his cool, and even when Emily discovers the truth of his plans, it's solely because she got suspicious and guessed the combination to his safe where he had temporarily stored David's blackmail proof until he could destroy it.
* OlderThanTheyThink: This is not the first time that Creator/DavidSuchet has played [[Literature/HerculePoirot a foreign detective]]; that role of his goes to ''Creator/AgathaChristie's Series/{{Poirot}}''.
* SoOkayItsAverage: The film has a very mixed median score of [[http://www.metacritic.com/movie/a-perfect-murder 50 out of 100 according to Metacritic]].