"A Slight Case of Murder" is an excellent TV movie, which is defiantly worth the price of a rental. William H. Macy is great as a movie critic who accidentally kills his mistress, and then has to try to conceal the crime. Although that may sound dark, the film is actually quite light hearted and funny, with many memorable lines ("Acting is harder than I thought- you ever see BODY HEAT? I think I owe Bill Hurt an apology" and my personal favourite "For next week answer these two questions about film noir, What do these people do during the day? and Why is it always raining?). The film has a great supporting cast including Macy's real life wife Felcity Huffman, James Cromwell and Adam Arkin. A must see for Macy fans!

Co-scripted by William H. Macy from, arguably, Donald E. Westlake's best and hardest to find novel, "A Travesty". *Very* faithful to the story, the movie stars Macy as a hapless man who gets in way too far over his head after attempting to cover up an accidental death. Costars Adam Arkin and James Cromwell in good supporting roles. The strength of the movie is in the intricate twist-after-twist storyline and in the acting, particularly by Macy who routinely and delightfully breaks through the 4th wall here and gets away with it every time. A good storyline with much dark humor, this one engaged me enough that I've watched it three times in the week since it came out. Prepare to shelve your critical faculties and emit a loud, bipartisan "wheeeeee!".

Not a stunner, but a good movie to see once or twice. Bill Macy shows he can do more than just act; his writing was pretty darn good. Great supporting cast, especially Jamie Cromwell as the extortionist private eye.The movie's greatest strength is the work of Macy, who reminds us of his Jerry Lundergaard role from Fargo. He has numerous scenes where he is extremely funny as a slimy, manipulating and deceitful character. It's enjoyable to watch him be a weasel, and for a while I was happy that things were turning out well for him. *** out of four.

Okay, I love Bill Macy, who's invariably fun to watch, with those pouchy eyes and that "please don't kick me again" expression-- or maybe it's "please don't kick me again so hard." And I love Donald Westlake, one of the best writers of light capers on the scene today. Westlake wrote the novel on which this is based, which I seem to recall reading as "Enough," not "A Travesty," which is what it says in the credits. The combination of these two guys is inspired, all the better in that Macy co-wrote the adaptation and tailored the lead precisely to his acting strengths. Macy just looks like a typical Westlake hero-- only, as one of the other characters points out, he really can't be the hero if he's killed his girlfriend, even accidentally. And he's not really the hero, I guess, although you do sort of root for him. Macy plays Jerry Thorpe, a not-very-nice TV film critic, whose attempts to evade the consequences of committing an accidental murder get more and more involved as the plot thickens. It's an anti-Columbo, where we follow the criminal, not the cop, and wonder when and how he's going to blow it. Macy's stayed true to the book, adding a lot of character touches and a couple of nifty flourishes. He even includes a funny reference to one of his own previous pictures, "Searching for Bobby Fischer." I guess, for me, the fun was just watching Macy have so much fun in a leading role-- like Steve Buscemi, he's a terrific character actor who rarely gets the chance to carry a film. He carries this one, and I hope to see him carry more.