Murder On The Orient Express (2017)

Synopsis:  Agatha Christie's famous detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) sets about solving a murder on the Orient Express. .

As Sidney Lumet’s 1974 Murder on the Orient Express amply demonstrated, Agatha Christie's novel is a lot of fun onscreen, particularly when the parts are played by an all-star cast.  Although with its marquee casting Kenneth Branagh’s version follows a similar strategy clearly it didn’t occur to Branagh  as director that giving himself the lion’s share of the screen time might not please everyone as much as himself.  For here’s the rub.  With a cast that includes Dame Judi Dench, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penélope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi and William Dafoe the very thing that gives the film its appeal, the chance to see seasoned performers strut their stuff, with the marginal exception of Pfieffer’s flirtatious older woman, does not happen. Sporting a ‘tache of prodigious proportions Branagh’s larger-than-life Poirot is centre-stage throughout with the rest of the cast effectively confined to cameo appearances. Given that screenwriter Michel Green (who co-wrote the not-so-hot script for the recently-released Blade Runner 2049)) is credited with a completely new adaptation this is, to say the least, a disappointment.

Opening with a completely-invented scene set in Jerusalem, the film takes its time establishing Poirot as a master detective and debonair man-of-the-world before introducing the twelve people who will eventually be his fellow-travellers on the Orient Express. Branagh stacks the early part of the film with high-end production values a considerable portion of it seemingly achieved with CGI (the film was shot on 65mm giving it a somewhat hyper-real look) as the train departs a thrumming 1930s Istanbul and plunges into the precipitous snow-covered mountains beyond where it is derailed during an avalanche. Then the murder is discovered and the fun begins as Poirot sets about trying to identify the murderer by interviewing each passenger in turn. Or at least it should but Branagh's tone, both as an actor and a director, feels a little too grim.

Certainly we are engaged as each of the characters is revealed to have a connection to the deceased. But this is also where the film hits a problem as not only is each revelation served up too easily, but their steady accumulation makes it obvious where things are headed and thus we are effectively robbed of the thrill of discovery. And when Poirot assembles everyone in a tableau echoing Leonardo’s The Last Supper and reveals the truth, there is no satisfactory explanation of how he could possibly have deciphered its complexity before the film segues to an ending which feels far too pat.  

‘Murder on the Orient Express’ is a clever yarn and Branagh’s version of it is handsomely plush, a combination which makes for an entertaining-enough film. albeit one that is not as entertaining as you would wish it to be..

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