Training Camp

As I understand it, opinions on Murder on the Orient Express (2017) are mixed. Some found it a fun, engaging ride, others couldn't stand the mustache. We enjoyed the movie - and loved the mustache.

The movie stars its director, Kenneth Branagh, as the great Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. We meet him at breakfast in Jerusalem, trying to find two perfectly matched soft-boiled eggs for breakfast. This Poirot is not just fussy, but a bit OC. He then goes on to solve a mystery that has Jerusalem in a religious tizzy, with a cute little button involving his cane.

He is about to head home, when he runs into a playboy friend, Tom Bateman. Bateman is the disgraced son of the owner of the Orient Express, charged with keeping the customers happy and never coming home. He gets Poirot a first-class berth on the train, and they head for Paris.

The train has an interesting batch of passengers, including Daisy Ridley, Penelope Cruz, Josh Gad, Judy Dench, Derek Jacobi, Willem Dafoe... These Agatha Christie movies should have star-studded casts, and this one doesn't disappoint. They have various roles and personalities, and probably secrets as well, but I didn't do too well figuring them out. Johnny Depp, however, plays a creepy criminal, and shortly, the Victim.

I assume we all know the ending, although Ms. Spenser didn't. It was funny, because she did know the joke from Red Dwarf, "I think they all did it." But I didn't really get the full mechanics of the plot. We see a lot of things happen on the night of the incident - people running around, clocks that may or may not be accurate, a stabbing, etc. We learn about some of them, but some are just dropped. It's like they assume we're not paying that close attention. And in my case, we're not.

What I am paying attention to is the look, the style of the thing. That's the other thing you want in these movies, along with stars: luxury. There are hats, frocks and suits, crystal, brass and mahogany, and champagne. There is jazz music. Some of it is filmed straight, some with almost delirious surrealism. That alone is enough to get me to watch.

But the mustache! I don't know if I can describe it. It starts out as an Imperial, I think - a handlebar mustache with a sort of soul patch beneath the lower lip. But the mustache develops wings, a kind of secondary mustache extending out on the cheeks, and it is just marvelous.

So for me, this is a great movie for watching, not so great for thinking about. This is too bad, because the best part of an Agatha Christie is the clockwork of the mechanism, and seeing it all put together. So, not the greatest adaptation, but points for the mustache.