After an urgent telegram interrupts his much needed break, Famed Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh – Dunkirk, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) is travelling to France on the Orient Express. Soon into this journey, there is a murder, and Poirot is called upon to solve this by journey’s end.
Director of the Orient Express is none other than Poirot’s friend Bouc (Tom Batemen). And filling the fine, luxurious coaches of the train are a mixed and eclectic group, comprising of Miss Mary Debenham, Governess (Daisy Ridley – Star Wars: The Force Awakens), a black doctor Arbuthnot (Leslie Odom Jr.), the unpleasant American Edward Ratchett (Johnny Depp – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Alice Through the Looking Glass), valet to Ratchett, Edward Masterman (Derek Jacobi – Inside No. 9, Cinderella) and secretary Hector MacQueen (Josh Gad – Beauty and the Beast, Frozen), Austrian Professor Gerhard Hardman (Willem Defoe – The Great Wall), an American socialite Mr.s Hubbard (Michelle Pfeiffer – Mother!, The Family), Italian car salesman Beniamino Marquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), the aged Princess Dragomiroff (Dame Judie Dench – Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Philomena) and her assistant Hildegarde Schmidt (Olivia Colman – Locke), a missionary Pilar Estravados (Penelope Cruz – The Brothers Grimsby, Zoolander 2), and the Count Rudolph Andrenyi (Sergei Polunin ) and Countess Elena Andrenyi (Lucy Boynton). With such a group, there are many interesting conversations, social commentary of the time, and much suspicion.
Based on the novel by Agatha Christie, and the fact that this incarnation of the story on screen is on the first time audiences would have seen the tale, there would not be many who do not know the plot. For those embarking on the journey, and following the story for the first time, while bereft of a complex plot, of many twists and turns, the story is compelling and does keep one guessing. Christie’s entire intent behind the story is misdirection, to say the least.
A talented, award-winning ensemble cast, but sadly some are woefully underutilised. There is also the fact that many characters would be compared to previous films, or the viewers on imagined version of the character.
Murder on the Orient Express still manages to enthral though. In entertains, and while doing so, provides some great cinematic visuals and setting. A great way to escape for a while, as poor Poirot tries so hard, all throughout the film, to do.
Murder on the Orient Express opens 24 November 2017 in South African cinemas.
