Movie Review: 'Murder on the Orient Express'

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is the most famous detective in the world. It is 1935 and Poirot is leaving Israel, having solved a crime that likely prevented a religious genocide. His work is that important, apparently. Poirot hopes for some rest and relaxation but unfortunately, he’s been called back to London on a matter of grave importance. The fastest way to travel in 1934 is the train known as the Orient Express, a bullet train from Istanbul all the way to Paris.

Misfortune follows the great detective, however, as he meets Mr. Ratchett (Johnny Depp) on the train and quickly deduces his criminality. Ratchett wants to hire Poirot to watch his back on the train ride but Poirot declines as he knows Mr. Ratchett is not who he claims to be. The true identity of Mr. Ratchett becomes the hook on which the rest of the plot of Murder on the Orient Express hangs. A murder occurs the night after Poirot and Ratchett’s tete a tete and Poirot is pressed into action to deduce the killer.

The list of suspects is long but as luck would have it, the train has been felled by an avalanche, leaving Poirot plenty of time for chatty snooping. Among the suspects are Ratchett’s cheating accountant MacQueen (Josh Gad), Ratchett’s servant Masterman (Derek Jacobi), a wealthy Princess (Dame Judi Dench), her maid (Olivia Colman), a German scientist (Willem Dafoe), a doctor (Leslie Odom Jr.), a governess (Daisy Ridley), a missionary (Penelope Cruz), a dancer and his ailing wife, and a husband-seeking missile named Miss Hubbard (Michele Pfeiffer).

Complicating matters further for Detective Poirot is that each and every one of the passengers I just mentioned are lying. Agatha Christie was a master of this sort of plot, navigating it with tantalizing detail. She, some have claimed, perfected the red herring and in Murder on the Orient Express, she brilliantly navigated a full sea of red herring. That director Kenneth Branagh evokes Christie’s legend is the true charm of the new film version of the legendary novel.

Branagh captures the class and style of Christie’s mysteries brilliantly with crisp, clear cinematography that gives the film an air of prestige. The images in Murder on the Orient Express are certainly showy, especially lengthy, repeated takes set to look down from the ceiling into the murdered man’s room as Poirot investigates, but the style is consistent and given that the film is, by nature, talky, a little visual flair is called for by circumstance.

That’s not to say that the dialogue in Murder on the Orient Express doesn’t have enough weight on its own. Indeed Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer spark especially well to the 30s-styled dialogue of gangsters and dames, the stuffy rich and the earthy servants of the powerful. Branagh has a terrific ear for dialogue and screenwriter Michael Green, gives the dialogue plenty of flair even as the visual style seems to indicate a need for showmanship.

It would be wrong of me not to say something regarding Johnny Depp as I spent much of my review of this weekend’s other wide release movie, Daddy’s Home 2, discussing the toxic behavior of star Mel Gibson. Depp has been accused of domestic abuse by his now former girlfriend. His appearance in Murder at the Orient Express, at the very least, has the perceptivity to cast Depp as a villain, unlike Daddy’s Home 2 which deifies Gibson’s toxicity. If I must suffer the sight of one of Hollywood’s supposed deplorables, it’s good to be able to dislike him as part of the plot.

Murder on the Orient Express is one of the rare clever mysteries wherein I was not able to easily guess the ending. I have not seen the Brian DePalma version of Murder so I wasn’t spoiled on this version which adheres greatly to that film, or so I have been told. I was quite pleased to have guessed wrong on the murderer in the movie and I dare say you will also be fooled, if you haven’t read Christie’s novel or seen the first film adaptation.

Kenneth Branagh has aged into one classy filmmaker. He’s accepted a place in the Hollywood machine and found his footing as someone who can bring an artistic flair to mainstream Hollywood blockbusters. His fastidious direction favors attention to detail, something most Hollywood blockbuster directors desperately lack. Attention to detail is part of what made his take on Thor and his reimaging of Cinderella so wonderful. While other directors would get caught up in special effects and glitz and glamour, Branagh is concerned with proper angles and crystal clear photography.

All of that and Branagh still remembers that blockbusters are supposed to be fun. Murder on the Orient Express is good deal more serious-minded than Thor or Cinderella, if only because of the subject of murder, but it has that same gleaming-eyed charm, and puts on a show of aesthetic of those other Branagh projects. At one time, Branagh was seen as a bloated auteur with ambitions bigger than his stomach. Now, with Murder on the Orient Express, he’s cemented himself as that rarest of all directorial birds, the blockbuster auteur.