Agatha Christie is proof positive that fan service is not a 21st century invention. There are so many similarities between the latest adaptation of her work by and starring Kenneth Branagh, and the first, that you can almost see a 1930s literary agent making the elevator pitch for Death on the Nile to a circumspect publisher: “It’s like Murder on the Orient Express … on a boat!” (They had elevators back then, but they were usually operated by a man whose job it was to do that. Whether this man was listening in on the elevator pitches or minding his own business is a detail that is probably lost to time.)
Familiarity turns out to be a good thing for Death on the Nile, to a point. While both this and 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express are prestige objects with great casts and superlative production design, there’s something about both that doesn’t quite get over the hump. Whether Branagh should be playing the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot with a little more broadness, or the films should be a little less diagrammatic in their structure, it’s hard to say. What we can say is that although you’ll have a good time watching Death on the Nile, you’ll never be convinced it’s more than a disposable pleasure.
True to the modern parameters of fan service, Death on the Nile gives us not only more of what we liked in the first movie, assuming we liked those things, but also back story that provides an explanation for something we never wondered about. In this case it’s how Poirot got his outrageous moustache. Don’t worry, it’s nothing like why they call Han Solo Han Solo. The film’s cold open is actually the element that distinguishes it most from its predecessor.
Shot in black and white, the opening finds a younger Poirot in the trenches of World War I, just having learnt that he and his battalion are set to attack a bridge in what is essentially a suicide mission. Not because he’s scared of dying, but because he has the prodigious mental abilities of a latter day Sherlock Holmes, Poirot instantly devises a plan to take advantage of a change in the wind and launch the attack immediately, rather than delaying as per his captain’s orders. While he survives the resulting skirmish, it leaves him with shrapnel in the face that necessitates the growth of facial hair to cover the expected scar above his upper lip. (Why the scar on his cheek heals perfectly is never explained.)
We move forward some 20 years to Egypt, where Poirot has again found himself in the company of just the sort of motley blend of characters befitting a good frame story. The centre of attention is Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) and his new bride and heiress Linnet (Gal Gadot), who have made the latest leg of their honeymoon a grand ride down the Nile on a luxurious boat. Although they might be in the full bloom of young love, their cares follow them around everywhere, rather literally. One of those is the woman Simon spurned just six weeks ago, Jackie (Emma Mackey), when he became entranced by Linnet on the dance floor. Jackie is also Linnet’s former friend.
All the others present have a connection to the central couple, including a doctor and former suitor of Linnet’s (Russell Brand), a jazz singer (Sophie Okonedo) and her niece (Letitia Wright), Linnet’s godmother (Jennifer Saunders) and her companion (Dawn French), Linnet’s business-minded cousin (Ali Fazal), Linnet’s maid (Rose Leslie), and the mother-son duo who have a connection to both Poirot and Linnet (Tom Bateman and Annette Bening), he a close friend of the detective’s. Naturally, Poirot will have occasion to question all these people when one of the extended party turns up dead.
Death on the Nile is most enjoyable in its opening hour or so, before the schematics of an Agatha Christie mystery really kick in. Not only is there that gorgeous opening – which benefits from Haris Zambarloukos’ black and white cinematography just like Branagh’s other current release, Belfast – but the popping color of the African setting proves the dynamism of the film’s visual approach. You’ll feel whisked away into a travelogue with the pyramids and pharaoh’s tombs, the snaking of the river through the lush country, and especially this fantastic boat, the S.S. Karnak – just big enough to feel decadent and opulent, just small enough to play as claustrophobic, knowing there is a killer in their midst. They don’t know that yet in the part of the film described here, which establishes the dynamics between characters and has a real sense of joy, despite the obvious foreboding of a character who clearly means them harm.
Of course, in an Agatha Christie mystery you are meant to take nothing at face value. Murder on the Orient Express is known for its improbable answer to “whodunnit,” though we won’t spoil that here. But in truth, the very essence of the murder mystery is that everyone has to be a suspect at one point or another, the most obvious suspect is rarely the correct choice, and if done well, the actual guilty party will be a satisfying reveal that you didn’t guess, despite evidence that the writer carefully planted along the way. Because this is Hercule Poirot, he’s going to present numerous elaborate theories, all of which have a basis in reality, to accuse various characters of the crime, which never seem to undercut him even though almost all those theories will eventually be wrong.
Maybe they do undercut him. The opening of this film establishes stakes for the main character, who could otherwise be a cypher if not for this and other parts of his back story we are privy to. He regrets not having saved his captain during the otherwise successful World War I bridge attack, and that sort of thing is supposed to fuel him in the current incarnation of his adventures. That he can’t fully redeem what he perceives as his earlier failure might seem like a flaw in the screenwriting – or it might just mean they are already planning a third Poirot outing with Branagh at the helm. After all, Christie wrote 31 other novels and more than 50 short stories that featured Poirot – so get comfortable.
Death on the Nile is currently playing in cinemas.