Kenneth Branagh's SLEUTH does something radical right off the bat. While most remakes of classics -- or supposed classics -- tend to be overstuffed and overlong (as if bigger automatically makes better), Branagh and his screenwriter Harold Pinter have taken a sharp scalpel to Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1972 version of Anthony Shaffer's stage play and skillfully whittled it down to the bare bones. It is not just that the material has been sliced down from the 138-minute running time of Mankiewicz's version to a relatively sprightly 86 minutes, Pinter has also trimmed away a lot of the cutesy dialogue and clumsy plotting that robbed the previous film of any sense of suspense or element of surprise.
This sparse approach is evident immediately with the set design; gone are the annoying bric-a-brac and childish clutter that made the 1972 version look as though it were taking place in a Victorian era toy shop, all replaced with a stark and creepy mise en scène. The stately exterior of the Wyke mansion now conceals a cross between Gothic and high-tech, an interior that suggests Caligari meets Kubrick, sort of post-modern Addams Family by way of Tim Burton. The country manor quaintness of the traditional murder mystery has been forfeited in favor of the icy blue-grays of a haunted house thriller. The game of cat and mouse that Shaffer originally concocted remains largely the same, but the setting makes it clear that the pretense that it is a gentlemen's game is effectively shattered. Rather than a hokey comedy of con games, this SLEUTH is intent on being a psychological drama of mind games.
The first two-thirds of the film adheres, more or less, to the outline of Shaffer's original tale: mystery novelist Andrew Wyke invites actor Milo Tindle to his country estate with a business proposition. Tindle is the paramour of Wyke's estranged wife and he has come to persuade Wyke to grant her a divorce. Wyke has other, more sinister, matters on his mind. What unfolds at first is a rather simple scheme aimed at faking a robbery and defrauding an insurance company, but this quickly gives way to a battle of wits based on lies and betrayals. Act one, or rather Round 1 goes to Andrew, while Milo comes back with surprising vengeance to take Round 2, with the deciding Round 3 up for grabs. Either wickedly funny or tiresomely contrived, depending on one's respect for the material, the original story relies heavily on the audience's willingness to accept the men as being either brilliant or gullible, depending on which way Shaffer wants to throw it. The newer version doesn't take it for granted that the audience will be easily seduced into accepting that either man would be so blindly fooled by the other's transparent tricks and expects the stars to be credibly convincing and straight-faced serious while telling their respective lies.
The filmmakers' bravest risk however comes in jettisoning the entire third act, leaving behind the labored battle of wits in favor of a more direct emotional and physical confrontation. In a certain way, this SLEUTH is less like its predecessor than it is like its thematic cousin, Sidney Lumet's version of Ira Levin's DEATHTRAP, as a homoerotic subtext has either been uncovered or totally invented. The mental one-upmanship of who will outsmart who evolves into a smart game of who will out who, all played with a sado-masochistic twist. A story of two male rivals battling for the affections of an unseen -- and ultimately irrelevant -- woman suddenly becomes a predatory mating dance designed to make the viewer wonder if one or both or neither of the men are closet cases as well as mental cases.
Much of whether this type of film works relies more on the actors than the story. Sir Laurence Olivier tackled the character of Andrew in the 1972 version and played the part too obviously as being either archly cunning in the way of a James Bond villain or as a simpering twit. Michael Caine more than held his own as Milo, but here Caine (now the elder statesman of British actors) inherits the role of Wyke and he wears the role with greater ease. Being comfortably condescending when his Andrew is on the attack and believably unnerved when forced to reveal his vulnerable side, Caine underplays deftly. His adversary is now Jude Law. Though roughly the same age as Caine was at that time, Law now skews Milo much younger and plays him as much more of a quixotic, explosive wild card -- and proves to be better at assuming disguises. Caine's grim calm and Law's nervous energy create a contrast that lends their confrontations greater tension -- sexual and otherwise. Caine and Law have much sharper rapport than Olivier and Caine did.
Unfortunately, while being leaner and meaner, the new SLEUTH doesn't hold up to the end any better than the old SLEUTH, because, either way, you still face a tough question -- not of who is smarter than who, but why should we care at all. There is nothing particularly likable or admirable about Andrew or Milo. Despite the fact that the characters beg for our sympathy at various points -- win, lose or draw -- neither film ends with a sense of triumph or a sense of gleeful satisfaction or even an appreciation of the cruel irony. Even if you get sucked up into the funhouse gimmicks and hambone theatrics of the Mankiewicz's version, you still have nothing but a silly, trivial entertainment. At least the Branagh version takes risks by exploring a sexual undercurrent in the story and peels away the surface to find the cold, hard center. But even so, beyond respecting it's sense of style, there is little reason to invest much emotional -- or even intellectual -- interest in the nasty little chess game that unfolds.
This sparse approach is evident immediately with the set design; gone are the annoying bric-a-brac and childish clutter that made the 1972 version look as though it were taking place in a Victorian era toy shop, all replaced with a stark and creepy mise en scène. The stately exterior of the Wyke mansion now conceals a cross between Gothic and high-tech, an interior that suggests Caligari meets Kubrick, sort of post-modern Addams Family by way of Tim Burton. The country manor quaintness of the traditional murder mystery has been forfeited in favor of the icy blue-grays of a haunted house thriller. The game of cat and mouse that Shaffer originally concocted remains largely the same, but the setting makes it clear that the pretense that it is a gentlemen's game is effectively shattered. Rather than a hokey comedy of con games, this SLEUTH is intent on being a psychological drama of mind games.
The first two-thirds of the film adheres, more or less, to the outline of Shaffer's original tale: mystery novelist Andrew Wyke invites actor Milo Tindle to his country estate with a business proposition. Tindle is the paramour of Wyke's estranged wife and he has come to persuade Wyke to grant her a divorce. Wyke has other, more sinister, matters on his mind. What unfolds at first is a rather simple scheme aimed at faking a robbery and defrauding an insurance company, but this quickly gives way to a battle of wits based on lies and betrayals. Act one, or rather Round 1 goes to Andrew, while Milo comes back with surprising vengeance to take Round 2, with the deciding Round 3 up for grabs. Either wickedly funny or tiresomely contrived, depending on one's respect for the material, the original story relies heavily on the audience's willingness to accept the men as being either brilliant or gullible, depending on which way Shaffer wants to throw it. The newer version doesn't take it for granted that the audience will be easily seduced into accepting that either man would be so blindly fooled by the other's transparent tricks and expects the stars to be credibly convincing and straight-faced serious while telling their respective lies.
The filmmakers' bravest risk however comes in jettisoning the entire third act, leaving behind the labored battle of wits in favor of a more direct emotional and physical confrontation. In a certain way, this SLEUTH is less like its predecessor than it is like its thematic cousin, Sidney Lumet's version of Ira Levin's DEATHTRAP, as a homoerotic subtext has either been uncovered or totally invented. The mental one-upmanship of who will outsmart who evolves into a smart game of who will out who, all played with a sado-masochistic twist. A story of two male rivals battling for the affections of an unseen -- and ultimately irrelevant -- woman suddenly becomes a predatory mating dance designed to make the viewer wonder if one or both or neither of the men are closet cases as well as mental cases.
Much of whether this type of film works relies more on the actors than the story. Sir Laurence Olivier tackled the character of Andrew in the 1972 version and played the part too obviously as being either archly cunning in the way of a James Bond villain or as a simpering twit. Michael Caine more than held his own as Milo, but here Caine (now the elder statesman of British actors) inherits the role of Wyke and he wears the role with greater ease. Being comfortably condescending when his Andrew is on the attack and believably unnerved when forced to reveal his vulnerable side, Caine underplays deftly. His adversary is now Jude Law. Though roughly the same age as Caine was at that time, Law now skews Milo much younger and plays him as much more of a quixotic, explosive wild card -- and proves to be better at assuming disguises. Caine's grim calm and Law's nervous energy create a contrast that lends their confrontations greater tension -- sexual and otherwise. Caine and Law have much sharper rapport than Olivier and Caine did.
Unfortunately, while being leaner and meaner, the new SLEUTH doesn't hold up to the end any better than the old SLEUTH, because, either way, you still face a tough question -- not of who is smarter than who, but why should we care at all. There is nothing particularly likable or admirable about Andrew or Milo. Despite the fact that the characters beg for our sympathy at various points -- win, lose or draw -- neither film ends with a sense of triumph or a sense of gleeful satisfaction or even an appreciation of the cruel irony. Even if you get sucked up into the funhouse gimmicks and hambone theatrics of the Mankiewicz's version, you still have nothing but a silly, trivial entertainment. At least the Branagh version takes risks by exploring a sexual undercurrent in the story and peels away the surface to find the cold, hard center. But even so, beyond respecting it's sense of style, there is little reason to invest much emotional -- or even intellectual -- interest in the nasty little chess game that unfolds.