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Sleuth (2007)

Director: Kenneth Branagh

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1 review

Synopsis

Rich older man Andrew Wyke invites Milo Tindle, his wife’s young lover, over to make him an offer – Milo can win her divorce if he agrees to break into Andrew’s house and steal his jewels. But the offer is not what it seems, and what follows is an elaborate game of cat and mouse between the two rival suitors.

Movie review

From Time Out New York

A rippingly boring game of mouse and mouse, Sleuth proves conclusively that some theater productions deserve to remain on stage—in an earlier, long-past decade. Anthony Shaffer’s Tony-winning 1970 play infused Agatha Christie’s skullduggery with then-bracing sexual tensions and witty gamesmanship as two men, one old, one young, compete for an infelicitous woman (unseen) in a gadget-laden English manor. The play became a slightly absurd 1972 movie starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine and now this fully bat-shit remake, set in a computerized estate where only a Bond villain or a four-year-old could happily dwell.

Luckily for formerly talented director Kenneth Branagh (Henry V), he’s actually got a Bond villain and a four-year-old. Caine, swapping up, now plays Shaffer’s cuckold millionaire with all the evil, mustache-twirling aplomb he’s capable of (a toxic amount), while Jude Law remains an infantile, unformed presence. Amazingly, the movie brings out the worst in both of them—and they’re the only two actors, so you really feel it. Secret panels glide quietly; remote controls are massaged; eyelids sink. The real culprit, dear Watson, is playwright Harold Pinter, contracted here for a baroque rewrite of Shaffer’s original dialogue. The result. Is one. Of unbearable artifice. Throughout. The entire film. Some puzzles just give you a headache.

Author: Joshua Rothkopf 2007-10-09 22:46:42

Time Out New York Issue 628: October 11–17, 2007

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User reviews of this film

Kirk said...

Posted on Nov 25 2007 08:33 Throughout this film, you feel that you're watching a bad, theatre-school production of some self-congratulatory, trying-to-be-clever play with the usual homo-erotic undertones that are surely necessary for this to be a play of any worth. I agree with the review above- bat-shit, rat-shit and cat-shit all mixed together. Jude Law is an appaling actor and as such should get back on stage with the lovies where only the pretentious few that patronise these awful plays will be sujected to his ridiculous posturing and fake laugh.

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