“Murder On The Orient Express”– Movie Review

This week, I attended a New York Times Film Club screening of the new mystery, “Murder On The Orient Express”, starring and directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Synopsis

When a passenger is killed during a long train ride, can a legendary detective determine which one of the others committed the crime?

Story

In 1934, famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh) boards the Orient Express in Istanbul to embark on a vacation – or so he thought.  The train is packed with a motley collection of fellow travelers – all of whom are quite idiosyncratic in their own right.  Along the way through the wintry mountains, the train gets stalled when it is derailed by a substantial snowdrift.  Once the train misses its schedule at the next station, an excavation crew is sent out to locate the train and dig it out so that it can proceed along its route.  Stuck in the snow, some of the passengers get acquainted with each other – in particular, Poirot meets a man named Ratchett (Johnny Depp), who turns out to be something of a scoundrel.   

While onboard this luxury transportation, one of the passengers is murdered – and to the surprise of few, it turns out the victim is Ratchett.  At this point, everyone looks to Poirot to find the culprit.  Poirot then begins his investigation in his own inimitable way, looking for clues in places where no one would think to find them.  His powers of deduction cause him to interview each of the passengers, asking some very pointed questions, infuriating and insulting some of them.  Furthermore, Poirot’s observational skills allow him to see things about each passenger which arouses his suspicions.     

With the excavation crew making inroads in their ability to free up the train, the Orient Express will soon be on its way.  Time is of the essence and if the train arrives at its next stop before a malefactor can be uncovered, they will likely get away with the crime.  Poirot is now under pressure to narrow down the suspects.  But who can it be?  Each one of the dozen passengers has shown themselves to be deceptive in their own way and a number of them even seem to have their own motive to want to take out Ratchett.  Can Poirot figure out who done it before it’s too late or will this prove to be the first time the great expert is outsmarted?

Review

It would be understandable to roll your eyes at the thought of yet another remake of this Agatha Christie classic novel.  But the filmmakers do seem to get it right this time around (unless of course you’re faithful to the Sidney Lumet version from 1974, which would be quite understandable as many consider it The Gold Standard).  The entire production design – including and especially the CGI that shows the locomotive wending its way through the snow-capped mountains – is quite something to behold.  But what really pulls the whole thing together is Branagh – both with his directing and his acting.  

The screenplay by Michael Green also deserves some notice as well.  He has allowed Poirot to have humor – including that of the self-deprecating variety which illustrates the detective’s immense ego (not to mention his larger-than-life mustache).  Also, the characters are reasonably well delineated, but not with so much detail that the audience can’t see the forest for the trees; in the two hours of the movie, you get just enough backstory about them that you have a good enough idea who each one is without clogging the forward progression of the main story.

As a director, Branagh finds some interesting shots on the train, shooting a conversation with one passenger through a window that almost acts like a cross between a prism and a fun house mirror.  Seeing him as Poirot march confidently across the snow-covered roof of a train car without concern for his footing is humorous in itself.  But as an actor, it’s the intensity he gives Poirot that truly hits the spot here; we almost see Poirot as vulnerable and fallible as he tries to come to the conclusion of just exactly who did away with Ratchett.