Sleuth

[The below review will be fairly spoiler-free until otherwise noted.]

This afternoon I saw the recent remake of Sleuth. For those of you unfamiliar, Sleuth was a 1972 thriller starring Sir Lawrence Olivier as Andrew Wyke and Michael Caine as Milo Tindel, whose actions and attitudes toward one another result in an escalating series of games of wits and one-upmanship with several major plot twists. Some might find it long at 138 minutes, but it is quite enjoyable nonetheless. The 2007 remake features Jude Law in Michael Caine's old role and Michael Caine in Olivier's old role. Between the source material and Kenneth Branagh as the director I had high hopes for this movie. As it turns out, Sleuth has been considerably diminished, both in length (98 minutes) and--unfortunately--in quality.

Despite being a good forty minutes shorter than the original, Sleuth '07 felt draggier, particularly because the games war took up less of the movie. It was a tad slow to get off the ground (most likely it didn't take more minutes than Sleuth '72, but the latter established the atmosphere right off the bat with the hedge maze), Inspector Black (Doppler in the original) spent too much time making small talk and not enough time inspecting, and by the last third the game just withered away. More on that area later.

Speaking of the beginning, Wyke dropped so many insults in the direction of Tindel's Italian heritage in the first five minutes that I was surprised the character wasn't immediately on his guard, and with the class-warfare angle abandoned the insults didn't even retain their significance.

A high-tech mansion fit Wyke's character perfectly in concept, but too much focus was put on surveillance, modern art, and lighting that doesn't fit a living space at all and not enough on...well, games. It lost the sense of eccentricity necessary for the premise to remain secure.

Tindel's second game for Wyke reeked of heavy-handed terrorism as opposed to wits. As such, it trod dangerously close to breaking the rules.

Now for the biggest mista...I mean alteration from the original: it was hinted earlier, but at least the last twenty minutes of the film solid were spent on a vaguely homoerotic element that was not present in the original. It was not present in the original because it is does nothing for the characters or the plot. First of all, it is made quite clear in the beginning that neither one is gay. Second, even if they were, it makes sense that they would respect one another as adversaries but not that they would be attracted to one another in the slightest. Third, the viewer is left unsure as to whether they were even serious. It just bogged down the movie.

[Spoilers are located below. If you haven't seen the original yet, do yourself a favor and PLEASE stop reading. The '72 movie really is worth watching unspoiled.]


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Inspector Black talked about hunting after "sex addicts...perverts...homicidal maniacs." Which would be all right if Tindel hadn't already dropped that precise phrase earlier in the film. The guy's intelligent; he would not risk blowing his disguise like that until he had played it to the hilt.

During the aforementioned last third, Wyke offered a truce. Wyke would not do that; he is a proud man, he invited Tindel to his house for the express purpose of putting the young man in his place, and he would never ask for a ceasefire when Tindel had had the last word.

Finally, there is the shooting. When Wyke finally shot Tindel in '72 it was completely understandable that 1) Tindel's revenge games had truly driven him to that action and 2) that, by shooting Tindel, Wyke broke the rules and lost. There was no such support for the '07 version. I knew what was ultimately going to happen and the killing still came out of nowhere. On a similar note, Tindel went flying off the handle too much in the second half of the film. No, no, no! Wyke has the upper hand in the first half, and then control shifts to Tindel, who retains it (and knows he retains it) right up until Wyke breaks. If Tindel is the one who keeps losing composure while Wyke remains calm the shooting is so much less meaningful.


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[End spoilers.]

I suppose one who hasn't seen the original might enjoy Sleuth '07 more than I did, but given a choice between a good version of a story and a not-so-good version...it wasn't broken, Kenneth, so why did you try to fix it?