“I will get you and your little dog, too! Oooops, wrong script. “Uh…. To go where no …. darn it, too many scripts! Script-boy! Bring me all the scripts labeled Mustache!”
Murder on the Orient Express (2017) is a film adaptation of the famous Agatha Christie novel, a lovely, if unrealistic – train cars are not that wide – retelling of the story of vengeance wreaked upon a narcissist, perhaps even a solipsist, for the kidnapping and killing of a baby by those with a connection to the victim, and how an injustice such as the heretofore unpunished murder of the child, and the shared murder of the perpetrator, troubles Christie’s famed Hercules Poirot.
This is the Kenneth Branagh version, based on a screenplay by Michael Green.
There is little to criticize here – oh, but that mustache! – and a lot to admire. The moral questions explored in this tale are, in my limited experience with the Christie canon, far more salient than most of her stories; perhaps Mr Green or Mr Branagh enhanced the original story, which I have not read, to bring them out. If so, this is welcome.
We enjoyed this version quite a lot, and if you enjoy murder mysteries, you will, too.
