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A dishevelled Kenneth Branagh (and tache) investigates a Murder on the Orient Express |
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Kenneth Branagh (Hercule Poirot), Tom Bateman (Bouc),
Penélope Cruz (Pilar Estravados), Willem Dafoe (Gerhard Hardman), Judi Dench
(Princess Dragomiroff), Johnny Depp (Samuel Ratchett), Josh Gad (Hector
MacQueen), Derek Jacobi (Edward Masterman), Leslie Odom Jnr (Dr Arbuthnot),
Michelle Pfeiffer (Caroline Hubbard), Daisy Ridley (Mary Debenham), Marwan
Kenzari (Pierre Michel), Olivia Colman (Hildegarde Schmidt), Lucy Boynton
(Countess Elena Andrenyi), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Biniamino Marquez), Sergei
Polunin (Count Rudolph Andrenyi), Miranda Raison (Sonia Armstrong)
Is there a murder mystery with a more widely known
resolution than Murder on the Orient
Express? Possibly not – if for no other reason that film and television
versions of this story are as numerous as the suspects in the actual mystery.
If that wasn’t a big enough challenge for Branagh to take on, he also joins a
list of umpteen actors to play Poirot himself: following in the (very precise)
footsteps of the big guns: Finney, Ustinov and of course, above all, David
Suchet. How does his version of this most famous detective in his most famous
adventure measure up? Well, with mixed results.
For those who don’t know, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh)
is “possibly the world’s greatest detective”. Here, he is travelling back from
Istanbul on the Orient Express, a berth
having being secured at the last minute by his friend Bouc (Tom Bateman) the
director of the line. En route he is approached by the sinister Ratchett
(Johnny Depp), who asks if he can serve as his bodyguard. Poirot refuses – only
for Ratchett to be murdered that night. Bouc asks Poirot to investigate – and
it soon becomes clear that the dozen other passengers in Ratchett’s carriage
could all have had motives to kill him. But who is the killer?
Murder on the Orient
Express is on the cusp of being a very good film. But, like the train
itself, it gets bogged down too often in changes from the source material that
add nothing, action scenes that feel toe-curlingly out of place, and bombastic
filming that goes a little bit too far. In many ways it captures some of the
faults of its director, my much-loved hero Kenneth Branagh – and I do love him,
but as a director he has a tendency to make things too big, to wear his love of
the complex shot on his sleeve; to basically try too hard. As a director,
that’s what it feels like he’s doing here.
It’s filmed with a luscious, chocolate box, old-school
Hollywood grandeur. The camera swoops and zooms over some gorgeous landscape as
the train puffs through snowy mountain scenery. There are some loving
travelogue tracking shots of Istanbul and Jerusalem. The film lingers with a
loving eye on the luxury and class of the Orient Express itself (including some
egregiously clunky product placement). The costumes look lovely. But the end result of all this lavish filming
is that it sometimes goes too far towards the reassuring, Boxing-Day-afternoon
treat.
Everything is a little too technicolour at points. It also
means that some of Branagh’s more self-consciously tricksy camera work stands
out a little too much. A “birds-eye” view of the discovery of the body (the
camera above the heads of the actors looking straight down) is oddly
disconnecting – it works a lot better when Poirot and Bouc examine the crime
scene, giving the audience a god like view of the scene. Some overly complicated
shots swoop up along the aqueduct where the train is stuck, past Poirot
speaking to characters, then over the top of the train. It’s a rather too
overblown and clumsy attempt to make a conversation seem cinematic – it feels a
little forced.
It’s one of many points where the film feels like it is trying
too hard to make the story edgier or more overtly cinematic. Not the least of
these are sequences that up the action quotient. I feel very confident this is
the first Poirot film you’ll ever see where the hero is involved in not one but
two dynamic fights. One of these is a bizarre chase down the aqueduct with
Poirot and another character. The second involves gunfire (an effective shock
to be fair) and Poirot using his cane as a weapon in hand-to-hand combat.
There is nothing wrong with making Poirot more active –
Branagh’s character is very much the ex-soldier and policeman, busting open the
door to Ratchett’s berth to investigate, walking over the train’s roof,
brow-beating the odd suspect (at one point at gun point). It’s just all too
much – what audience is this playing to? Who really goes to a Poirot film
expecting a goddamn fight scene? Even Count Andrenyi is introduced ninja-kickboxing
photographers (I’m not joking here) – is this really what Agatha Christie would
have wanted?
There are some odd choices made to deepen Poirot’s
character. He is given some sort of lost romantic interest – no less than four times in the film he is given
scenes where he holds a photo and bemoans “mon cher Kat-a-rean”. In the opening
sequence, Poirot’s love of symmetry is introduced by him accidentally stepping
in a cow pat and then stepping in it with his other foot to make each equal. Not only does a “stepping in shit”
joke seem wildly out of place, but I don’t believe someone as fastidious and
observant as Poirot would even step in it in the first place, let alone choose to step into it twice.
The train doesn’t just stop, it’s nearly taken out by an
avalanche. A knife isn’t just discovered, it’s literally found stabbed into a character’s back. Characters
have been changed to allow a more diverse cast – which I applaud – but making
Arbuthnot a soldier turned doctor is a change that makes very little sense. The
claustrophobia of the original is lost by having workers turn up almost
immediately to dig the train out. Several scenes are filmed outside, with
workers surrounding the train digging it out. Some of these undermine the
original or are a little silly.
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The suspect assemble |
But I’m being really hard on this film because there are
major flashes of promise here. Not least in Branagh’s performance as Poirot.
I’m very confident in saying that, after David Suchet of course, this is the
second best Poirot committed to film. The first thing anyone will notice is of
course the moustache. Yes it looks absurd, but you attune to it quickly. It’s
also a plot point: Poirot uses it, and his eccentricities, to lure people
(Columbo style) into a false sense of security. When the film relaxes into just
letting Poirot investigate (and hues closer to the original), Branagh gives
Poirot a warm humanity and gentleness. His eyes are a wonder – intense disks of
sadness.
Branagh gives Poirot a love of order and justice that
defines his world view – and the film introduces a moral conundrum for Poirot
in the solution of the crime. I would say David Suchet’s TV version did this
better – stressing Poirot’s Catholicism and belief in the rule of law as major
factors that conflict him when confronted with the solution. But Branagh
captures a real sense of Poirot’s conflict (even if the solution reveal is
overplayed and overshot – right down to a “last supper” style tableaux in a
railway tunnel) and his sadness, confusion and decency are really lovely - there is even a very neat touch with him forgetting to straight and smarten his appearance, as he deals with the ramifications of his solution to the murder. He
looks like cartoon character, but he makes Poirot a real man. I would
definitely like to see him do the role again.
The rest of the all-star cast rather struggle for crumbs, as
the focus remains solidly on Poirot (largely because the film is intended as
the possible first in a series). Tom Bateman is excellent as Bouc, charming and
endearing but also given a character arc that sees him develop and change. Of
the stars, Depp is suitably grimy as Ratchett, Pfeiffer imperiously stylish and
skittish as Hubbard and Odum Jnr affecting as Arbuthnot. I was very taken with
Daisy Ridley’s Mary Debenham, a young charm hiding steel underneath. Dafoe,
Dench, Colman, Jacobi and the rest are given little to do but are reliably
excellent when they are. Others like Cruz feel wasted.
When the film focuses on Poirot simply investigating, it is
very good. Each interrogation of the passengers is brilliantly played by
Branagh – Poirot subtly adjusting his methods and approach depending on the
person he is talking to. Poirot’s introduction sequence in Jerusalem has a
playful Sherlock feel to it: Poirot
solving a crime in seconds (having been dragged from his hotel, where he
pickily demands eggs that are perfectly equal), including accurately predicting
how the criminal will try and escape. There are lots of lovely moments – but
just when you settle down to enjoy it, something wildly over-the-top or silly
happens.
Murder on the Orient Express
is by no stretch of the imagination a bad movie. In some places, it’s charming
and a lot of fun. If it’s designed for watching on a bank holiday afternoon it
works very well. But it’s, at best, the third best version of this story on
film (after the 1974 Lumet film and the Suchet TV version). Do we really need
to watch the third best version of an already familiar story? If we could
transplant Branagh’s performance into Lumet’s film, now that would be
something. But as it is, we’ve got a decent if flawed film that just tries too
hard to do too much.
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