Mark Salisbury reports:
"They’re a funny lot the Italians,” says Michael Caine’s character in the Sleuth remake, “culture isn’t their thing.” That got a big laugh at yesterday’s press screening I can tell you, but judging by the critical reaction to the movie in this morning’s Italian media they clearly took the comment with a pinch of salt, since they gave the Kenneth Branagh-directed, Harold Pinter-scripted version of Anthony Shaffer’s play, previously filmed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1972, pretty positive notice. Not so Variety, which called it a “bizarrely contorted facsimile”. It’s that, and worse. With Jude Law stepping into Michael Caine’s shoes for the second time, and Caine taking over from Laurence Olivier, Shaffer’s classic two-hander, a verbal war of words and increasingly deadly gamesmanship between best-selling crime author Andrew Wyke (Caine) and his wife’s young lover, Milo Tindle (Law), is sunk by a woefully unconvincing Law performance, terrible (and terribly distracting) production design from Tim Harvey - Caine’s eccentric lair is filled with bizarre, uncomfortable looking modern furnishings, security cameras and hi-tech gadgetry, all seemingly operated by one Apple ishuffle remote control - and Branagh’s failure to make the one location and two men work visually. “I wouldn’t have done a straight remake,” said Caine at the film’s press conference, “this is a completely different take, much more severe.” It’s also almost an hour shorter that the original, which was a relief.
Glenn Kenny adds:
I'm slated to review this when it opens in October, but I will say here that Branagh places Caine and Law in front of so many reflective surfaces that the picture often comes off as Losey's The Servant on steroids. Not a good thing.
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