Unnecessary Games
posted on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 in Movie Reviews
About thirty-six years ago, Michael Caine was in a movie called Sleuth with Sir Laurence Olivier. It was a clever and intense little whodunit that left people gripped. The new version of Sleuth features much of what made the first film great: snappy dialogue, interesting set pieces, a few good twists, and even Michael Caine, but inexplicably, it falls tremendously flat. Sleuth feels like a generally unnecessary exercise. Actor Milo Tindle visits the home of Andrew Wyke, a rich and eccentric mystery writer who also happens to be the husband of the woman Milo is sleeping with. Milo asks Andrew to grant his wife a divorce, but instead, gets drawn into a dangerous game of Andrew’s design, one that involves priceless jewels and a penchant for murder.
The film is ostensibly a remake, but it’s more of a new adaptation of the original award-winning Anthony Shaffer play. This version of it, however, while featuring dialogue and themes in the same vein as the source material, mostly misses the mark. It’s kind of hard to explain where the film goes wrong without giving too much away, but overall, the script just feels empty. It has all the trappings without any of the meat, a semblance of emotion standing in for the substance of the play and the first adaptation.
It just feels boring. The film is so concerned with setting a tone and finding a style that it feels tremendously artificial, lacking any sort of dramatic energy. The dialogue is fascinatingly written but utterly meaningless, a series of ludicrous lines meant to be menacing without having any real context behind it. It’s superficial to say the least, and the direction makes the same impression. The film is mostly composed of static shots of Wyke’s stylish home, and while it makes for some interesting frames, it doesn’t really add anything to the film. It feels like more could have been accomplished in conveying the characters’ emotions is the camera didn’t keep distracting us with the trappings of Wyke’s home.
The cast provides an interesting wrinkle to the proceedings. Jude Law is playing the role that Michael Caine played thirty-six years ago, while Caine moves up to the Olivier role. It’s like seeing a cinematic passing of the torch, and Law makes for a good successor to Caine. While Law teeters on the edge of being a ham, he still crafts a compelling performance. Michael Caine’s talent can’t really be overstated. He’s just fantastic. The two have a lot of energy between them, and they’re able to give their characters a lot of personality. But really, in the end, they’re just hobbled by the staid direction and horrible, dead-obvious script.
Sleuth just feels like a waste of time for everyone involved. They aren’t able to say anything new with this version, and in fact, it loses most of what made the play and the first adaptation so great. While Law and Caine have much to offer in terms of performances, it just isn’t worth sitting through the utterly soulless and joyless cinematic experience that Sleuth offers. Give this one a pass.
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