Sleuth (2007)
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Locked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with.
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What critics compared Sleuth to
While Knives Out takes direct inspiration from the stories of Agatha Christie and films like Sleuth and Deathtrap, Rian Johnson also manages to inject some social commentary, and he does it in a very sly but humorous way.
To be fair, The Outfit is no Sleuth (although a case can be made that it’s a better movie than Kenneth Branagh’s re-imagination/remake of the latter film), but it’s an engaging caper/mind game in which watching the characters interact is as much fun as mining the truth.
In that aspect, the 1978 film, whose screenwriter Anthony Schaffer had proven his skills with murderous puzzles on Sleuth , is superior.
From the pyramids of Giza to the temples of King Ramses II at Abu Simbel, Branagh and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos (the director’s collaborator since 2007’s Sleuth) create an artificial world, albeit accented with intermittent pleasures—the soundtrack of jazz and blues tunes, in particular.
With cinematographer and long-time collaborator Haris Zambarloukos on board ( Thor ; Sleuth ; Jack Ryan ; Cinderella ; Belfast ), the piece is beautifully photographed.
As a filmmaker he can either be boldly expressive (“Dead Again,” “Hamlet“) or safe and ineffective (“Sleuth,” “Frankenstein“).
Though the filmmaker has crafted thrillers with equal tension and emotion in the past, such as “Dead Again” and his fine remake of “ Sleuth ,” Branagh’s latest film doesn’t make you feel much at all throughout the fairly cold and routine retelling.
He directed Marvel’s original Thor, the acclaimed mystery Sleuth, the new version of Cinderella and several critically celebrated films based on William Shakespeare’s plays.
Also — and this is big — there’s an inherent difficulty in remaking any whodunit, as Branagh learned with his go at “Sleuth.”
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Then, after 2007’s Sleuth, Branagh wouldn’t direct another movie until 2011.
The music by Patrick Doyle, whose collaboration with Branagh goes back to their mutual feature film debut Henry V (1989), is elegant and substantive without being intrusive, and the cinematography by Haris Zambarloukos, who previously shot Sleuth (2007) and Thor for Branagh, is appropriately sumptuous, but without losing some of the primal earthiness that keeps the fairy tale grounded.