Death On The Nile

 

It's not very often a moustache gets it's own flashback but that's how Death On The Nile starts. The Western Front, Belgium, 1914. A baby faced Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh who also directs) uses his smarts to save his platoon from certain death during a crossing of No Man's Land and ends up hideously scarred as a result. Hence, the moustache to end all moustaches. No better way to cover up.

23 years later Poirot is on holiday in Egypt and gets invited on a cruise by his friend Bouc (Tom Bateman). A boat trip up the Nile that will celebrate the Honeymoon of Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) and and heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot). Along for the spin are friends, family, doctors, their favourite musicians and one very unwelcome guest, Jackie de Bellefort (Emma Mackay), Simon's ex-fiance who hasn't taken too kindly to being dumped unceremoniously for Linnet. As the boat chugs slowly through the crocodile filled waters by the temple of Abu Simbel a shot rings out and now the world's greatest detective has a murder to solve and a captive audience of suspects to give his beady eye.

Death On The Nile is slightly better than Murder On The Orient Express but that's damning it with faint praise. Branagh feels more relaxed into the leading role and the central mystery is slightly more plausible than the ridiculous one at the heart of the former film. But what's amazing about this film is the fact that it even made it to the cinema between Covid induced delays and numerous prominent members of the cast being accused of all manner of no-no's like supporting Israel's anti Palestine stance, anti vaxx sentiments (x 2), sexual misconduct and....cannibalism. Yup, remember all that stuff about Armie Hammer last year? There's a reason you didn't see him on the posters or in the trailers for Death On The Nile. His part here was too big to CGI out à la Kevin Spacey in All The Money In The World. So 20th Century Studios just brass necked it out by pretending he didn't exist. His presence does tend to overshadow proceedings at times but when you've a larger than life hero like Poirot onboard he'll take the attention away. 

It's an alright watch, a time passer that you'll have forgotten 24 hours later. It's the very definition of a 2.5 star film. If you enjoyed the ITV version with David Suchet you'll probably like this too. It's stacked cast will amuse you as they pop up one by one (seeing French and Saunders together again as Linnet's godmother and her travelling nurse is fun) but they all get very little too do apart from be either picked apart or decimated by the investigating detective. This is the Hercule Poirot show don't you know. His moustache gets more screen time than Rose Leslie (Linnet's maid) and Russell Brand (Linnet's ex-fiance) together. The standouts are Sophie Okenodo as Salome Otterbourne, a jazz singer who catches Poirot's eye and Emma Mackey as Jackie, the one character who brings a touch of unpredictability to the story. That is if you haven't seen the previous versions. Previous versions that while family friendly, felt gritty and earthy compared to this purely because they weren't riddled with cheap looking CGI that pulls you out of the story constantly. At no point in this will you ever believe anyone in the cast stepped foot in Egypt or even near water. It's all so pristine and fake and ugh. There's an awful lot to be said for location filming and if you are going to pull together a big star studded cast you could at least put them somewhere pretty.

Death On The Nile is out now. It will fill a couple of hours for you but in the end it just feels pointless, adding nothing new to the better, older versions.