Death on the Nile Review: Murder Without the Mystery

(Bloomberg) -- At least where licensing is concerned, Agatha Christie, dead for more than 45 years, has left her higher-brow contemporaries in the dust. In the past decade alone there have been at least 20 TV series and five movies based on her novels. Poor F. Scott Fitzgerald, in contrast, has notched just a single feature film, along with a few series and shorts in the same time period.

There's no single reason for Christie's longevity, but a decent place to start is her ability to create singular characters, specifically the sharp-eyed, perennially underestimated Miss Marple and the preening celebrity sleuth Hercule Poirot. Christie paints these heroes with a broad, nuance-free brush, but their absence of interior life has proven a narrative and cinematic strength: The reader, or viewer, is as clueless as the characters while the pieces of the mystery slowly come together.

Perhaps the finest example of this effect can be found in John Guillermin's superb 1978 adaptation of Christie's novel Death on the Nile, in which an implacable Poirot, played by Peter Ustinov, is surrounded by a spectacular cast including Mia Farrow, Bette Davis, Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, and Jane Birkin. Even amid the ensemble's theatrics (Lansbury, in particular, plays to the back of the house), Poirot methodically pushes the mystery forward, solving clues and asking questions even as he remains a cipher.

Four decades later comes another Death on the Nile, this time directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh as Poirot. The film, a whodunit set on a tourist steamer making its way to the city of Wadi Halfa, is positioned as a sequel to Branagh's critically panned yet commercially successful 2017 Christie adaptation, Murder on the Orient Express. 

Precisely because Poirot is such an evergreen character, Branagh's decision to give him a gritty, superfluous backstory is baffling. Did you ever wonder why Poirot has a mustache? Me neither, but now we know it's to cover up a facial wound incurred as he captured a bridge from German troops during World War I. 

Soon enough, we're back in the 1930s-era present, where yet another A-list cast slugs its way through a parlor drama far more violent than Poirot's trench warfare.

A Wedding Party Goes South

Based on a screenplay by Michael Green, the film stars Gal Gadot as Linnet Ridgeway, a rich socialite who has stolen Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer, who was not recast) from the arms of her former friend, Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey).  

Jacqueline, understandably miffed that her richer, prettier, more glamorous counterpart has taken her true love, follows the happy couple on their honeymoon to Egypt, showing up at their celebrations and smiling maliciously. It's harassment of a mild sort, but it proves overwhelming for Linnet and Simon; in an effort to escape, they hire the aforementioned steamer, bringing their wedding party, including Poirot, in tow.

A panoply of comically bad accents is the only diversion for the movie's first half.

In the “faking a British accent” column we have Hammer, straining for an Oxbridge drawl as Doyle, and Annette Bening as Euphemia Bouc, a friend of Linnet's family.

In the “American accent” category we notch Sophie Okonedo as Rosalie Otterbourne, an American jazz singer Linnet has hired for the cruise; Jennifer Saunders, Linnet's godmother Marie Van Schuyler; and Ali Fazal as Andrew Katchadourian, Linnet's shady lawyer.

The Scottish actress Rose Leslie takes a swing at a French accent as Linnet's maid, joined in her efforts by Branagh's Belgian Poirot.  

Godot, who I believe is supposed to be American, sounds like Godot always does.

Murderous Pace

The pace mercifully picks up after the first murder, at which point the guests shift from bickering with one another to … bickering with one another. The most obvious suspects have rock-solid alibis. Everyone else could have done it, but would they? 

In the original novel, the short answer is yes. Christie, a master of the slow reveal, gradually unveils each character's sordid connection to the deceased, page by page. So, too, in the 1978 version, whose characters played it even closer to the chest. But in Branagh's movie, guests wear their motives on their sleeves nearly from the get-go, severely denting the very tensions that make the story so compelling.

Instead, we get more violence, more subplots, and more backstories as compensation. We also get to see Godot in some lovely evening dresses, along with a host of CGI-rendered Egyptian tourist attractions. 

In that respect, the movie truly is a product of its time: Subtlety is not an option and more is unquestionably more.

And that's fine. Poirot has faced far more sinister adversaries than a handful of film executives; let them do their worst. Poirot and Christie will live to see another day. 

Death on the Nile opens in U.S. theaters on Feb. 11.

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