With four or five filmings out there, this version of the Agatha Christie classic, part of David Suchet’s POIROT series, tries too hard to stand apart from Sidney Lumet’s witty 1974 All-Star entertainment. Dark & dour, with little in the way of fun or mystery, it misreads Christie, adding indignation and a dose of Catholic moralizing to her deft puzzle. Suchet, exhausted and in bad spirits right from the start, makes a joyless detective Hercule Poiret in this one, the little grey cells working under duress. A shame as the production is unusually lux for the series and the cast, with some names soon to become famous (Jessica Chastain; Hugh Bonneville) is reasonably starry if not a patch on the Lumet parade of legends. The wicked smart plot remains a legerdemain wonder, so you’ll still be pulled into the whodunit aspects when a vicious businessman is murdered in his train compartment on the elegant Orient Express, but there’s little reason to opt for this version.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: As mentioned, the deluxe 1974 iteration holds up beautifully. (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/09/murder-on-orient-express-1974.html)
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