Murder on the Orient Express: A misdemeanor offense

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for brief violence and mild dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Many actors long to play Hamlet.

Others look forward to taking a crack at Hercule Poirot.

When an avalanche delays the London-bound Orient Express, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth
Branagh) is in the perfect position to solve a heinous murder ... because the killer still
must be somewhere on the train.

Kenneth Branagh is a marvelous Poirot. He nails Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian private detective: from the meticulous OCD tendencies — stroking his perfectly coifed mustache, sizing up the comparative height of his twin breakfast soft-boiled eggs — to the narrowed gaze and waspish tone that indicate crime scene analysis undertaken by his “little grey cells.”

Branagh definitely deserves placement alongside David Suchet and Albert Finney, as cinema’s greatest Poirots.

Alas, the same cannot be said for the vehicle in which Branagh’s Poirot inhabits. Screenwriter Michael Green’s attempt to turn Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express “relevant” for modern viewers makes a shambles of her ingeniously plotted 1934 novel. His adaptation commits the cardinal sin of telegraphing the twist so early, that he gives away the game before we’re even halfway through the film.

Green was an odd choice for this assignment. He’s into excess and exploitation: a sci-fi/horror guy whose credits include Green Lantern, Logan, Alien: Covenant and television’s Gotham and American Gods. He obviously lacks the subtlety and sly British wit required of a Christie mystery, which demands the touch of somebody like Peter Morgan (The Queen, television’s The Crown) or Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey and his own marvelous Christie pastiche, 2001’s Gosford Park).

Green struggles mightily to transform this story into an action-oriented adventure akin to director Guy Ritchie’s recent re-boots of Sherlock Holmes, and it simply doesn’t work. Murder on the Orient Express is a mostly tranquil drawing-room mystery ... except that it takes place aboard a train.

Branagh also directs, and succumbs overmuch to long tracking shots and other visual flourishes, which further diminish the story at hand. One sequence, inexplicably shot from above the characters’ heads as they enter a train compartment, is incredibly distracting.

Branagh seems to love the camera trickery made possible by contemporary CGI effects, and misses no opportunity for stunning vistas of the eponymous train, as it navigates the mountainous regions from Here to There: undeniably gorgeous, as is Haris Zambarloukos’ cinematography ... but rather beside the point.

The story takes place in 1934. Green opens the film with a droll prologue that hasn’t a thing to do with Christie, but nonetheless deftly establishes everything we need to know about Poirot. A last-minute change of plans interrupts an intended vacation in Istanbul, and prompts him to board the lavish Orient Express en route to London via Italy, Switzerland and France.

Much to the surprise of Poirot’s young friend Bouc (Tom Bateman), the charming manager of the train, it’s almost completely full. He nonetheless squeezes the detective on board, where — once the trip begins — he’s approached by the shifty Edward Ratchett (Johnny Depp, at his most smarmy). The gangster fears for his life, and believes that “Her-cue-leeze Pwa-wrought” would make a perfect bodyguard; how much would that cost?

Poirot declines, with more grace than the uncomfortable conversation requires.

Subsequent encounters with his fellow passengers prompt smiles and/or raised eyebrows, after which Poirot turns in for the night ... or, at least, attempts to do so. A few odd occurrences are mere preamble to near catastrophe, when the train’s locomotive is derailed by an avalanche while traveling through the Dinaric Alps (in former Yugoslavia).

The passenger cars are secure; nobody is hurt, aside from a few bumps and tumbles. But at daybreak Ratchett is found dead in his compartment, his body mutilated by multiple stab wounds.

With nothing to do until a work crew arrives to dig out the locomotive and maneuver it back on the tracks, Poirot grimly accepts the inevitability of identifying the killer ... who, given the circumstances, obviously must be one of the passengers or crewmembers still on the train.

Finney’s starring turn in the 1974 big-screen version of this novel — still the gold-standard adaptation — prompted stellar casting of the 12 key suspects; the same proved true of subsequent high-profile Christie adaptations for the next decade-plus (Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun and so forth). That formula is replicated here, and a certain degree of delight emerges from the familiar faces who inhabit key roles.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the most ostentatious, as Caroline Hubbard, a widow on the prowl whose flirtatiously behavior raises Poirot’s eyebrows more than a little. Pfeiffer has a lot of fun with the role, her mocking gaze a constant challenge to the Belgian detective.

Josh Gad is well cast as Hector MacQueen, a twitchy, oily little man employed as Ratchett’s secretary. The role is far from Gad’s usual high-comedy touches, but he’s quite believable as a nervous fellow with much to hide.

Derek Jacobi is the pluperfect manservant as Edward Masterman, Ratchett’s calmly obedient butler; Judi Dench is appropriately haughty as Princess Natalia Dragomiroff, a Russian aristocrat never seen without her two little dogs. Daisy Ridley is pert and spunky as Mary Debenham, a governess between postings; Leslie Odom Jr. makes the stalwart Dr. Arbuthnot oddly over-qualified, often offering alibis and reasonable alternatives to Poirot’s musings.

On the other hand, some characters — and casting choices — don’t work at all. Olivia Colman is a blank slate as Hildegarde Schmidt, Princess Dragomiroff’s maid; she’s unable to do anything with a shamefully under-written role. Lucy Boynton is barely seen as the frail Countess Andrenyl; her easily enraged husband, Count Andrenyl (Sergei Polunin), seems to have wandered in from an unrelated martial-arts movie. His character is ridiculous, and Polunin’s performance is way over the top.

Willem Dafoe doesn’t do much with his role as Gerhard Hardman, a racist Austrian whose political views offend everybody else. Marwan Kenzari fares better as first-class conductor Pierre Michel, whose ready smile and ubiquitous good cheer do much to defuse tense moments.

They’re all outshone by Penélope Cruz, whose Pilar Estravados is the only character — aside from Poirot — who feels like she stepped out of the pages of Christie’s novel. Cruz understands precisely how to shade Pilar, an impassioned missionary with a distaste for vice and a biblically doom-laden view of the world.

Characters and story aside, the film is visually sumptuous. Production designer Jim Clay re-creates the opulent Orient Express down to the tiniest detail, and costume designer Alexandra Byrne completes the illusion; period dramas rarely look and feel this authentic. There’s no question that Branagh has overseen an impeccably mounted film, but that counts for little when the story fails.

And that’s the major problem. Most of the characters simply aren’t very interesting, and Green’s clumsy handling of the mystery makes things worse. A good Christie adaptation also should be fun, and — aside from the delightful tics and hiccups that Branagh gives Poirot — there’s very little humor here.

I’m forced to wonder — with profound regret — whether Agatha Christie remains relevant to any beyond those who devour Brit-lit delights such as Downton Abbey and The Crown. Other recent attempts to “modernize” Christie classics have ranged from disappointing to downright dreadful, as with 2015’s ghastly TV miniseries update of And Then There Were None.

These stories only work as Christie conceived them, in the appropriate time and place, and with her style and original plots intact. If they can’t be adapted that way — even with somebody as talented as Branagh at the helm — then they shouldn’t be done at all.