Reason no. 12,345 against remakes: Kenneth Branagh’s Sleuth, a slick, interesting reworking of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1972 film of the same name (and the original Anthony Schaffer play) that pales so vividly in comparison to the original material that it cannot be deemed anything other than a failure.
In what is essentially a two-character play, millionaire author Andrew Wyke (Michael Caine) matches wits with Milo Tindle (Jude Law), a hairdresser of Italian heritage who asks Wyke to grant his wife a divorce so he can marry her.
Wyke offers to do it if Tindle will aid him in a little insurance fraud; but that’s just the beginning of the deceit and manipulation played out by each of the characters in this increasingly unpleasant game.
Caine played Tindle against Laurence Olivier’s Wyke in the original film, and watching him take on the opposite role here was the sole bright spot in the film; he’s as good as ever in a mannered, nuanced performance.
Law is no match for Caine – either as co-star or as Tindle – but he gets the job done. Branagh moves his camera fluidly around the single setting, Wyke’s giant mansion that feels more like a prison; the set is spectacularly designed, but everything is so cold and sinister – and the characters so unpleasant – that you leave the film with a bad taste in your mouth.
The biggest problem with the movie is that it’s a remake of a near-perfect film; nothing here is as good as it was before, and Pinter’s script changes only insult Schaffer’s masterful original, with third act homoeroticism a laughable addition, bordering on self-parody for Pinter.
Though the film would very likely work as an independent enterprise – and viewers who haven’t seen the original will, I imagine, still find this version compelling – we can’t help but watch in distress as they seem to get it all wrong here.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when the film ended at less than 90 minutes, completely removing the last act and final twist that made the original so brilliant. You might call that a twist in its own right; I call it a spectacular disappointment.
