"Bitterness is a paralytic. Love is a much more vicious motivator."Okay, so Poirot doesn't actually say that. That's Sherlock Holmes in the new miniseries Sherlock, which everyone should be watching. (More generally, everyone should be watching everything Steven Moffat touches right now. He is at the top of his game.) My original point: Poirot easily could say that thing about bitterness and love. It's true of the criminal motive in Murder on the Orient Express.
Fifteen people board a sleeping car of the Orient Express in Istanbul. One of them is murdered, one of them is famous detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney), and the remaining baker's dozen are suspects. Over the rest of the movie, Poirot collects clues and talks to the passengers, then assembles them all in the dining car to expose the guilty.
The big reveal scene follows that age-old screenwriting adage: "Show, and also tell." This scene is so long! Lumet is a brilliant director, but I don't understand some of the choices he made in this movie--for example, why he chose to include Poirot's detailed description of the crime and lengthy flashbacks. There might have been room for both of those things, but not for so much of each of them.
One of the film's strong points, on the other hand, is its music. This movie has an honest-to-God overture! I love overtures, I love when movies have them, and this is a great one. Listen to this fucking overture:
Now are you stoked to see a movie, or WHAT? The whole score of Murder on the Orient Express (composed by Richard Rodney Bennett) is fantastic--the best thing about the movie, no question.
Overall, I thought the film's pedigree outshone the film itself. I imagined that Lumet, Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, and John Gielgud would, together, make a great movie, but Murder on the Orient Express is just pretty good. It's fun. And strangely heartwarming.
- Liked It
