Based on the 1937 novel by Agatha Christie, “Death on the Nile,” the latest film directed by, and starring, Kenneth Branagh as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, takes viewers on a murder mystery tour down the Nile River in Egypt (which started out as a wedding party.) And if you think this is an Oscar-worthy film, just because of the lush CGI scenery, the chatty dialogue, or chic costumes, you’d be in serious DENile.
This film clearly has Oscar pretentions. Too bad it has so many flaws. The aforementioned CGI pyramids and river do their best to distract from them, but they exist. But let’s start with the cast, itself.
The leads, Armie Hammer as Simon Doyle and Gal Gadot as wife Linnet Ridgeway, play newlyweds who have invited friends on a cruise down the Nile in 1937. The two are seemingly happy, but Simon’s spurned lover, Jacqueline de Bellefort (played by Emma Mackey) has threateningly followed the group every step of the way and is now on the ship with them.
Poirot is asked by the couple to watch out for their safety.
The complicated back story of the couple and de Bellefort, told first in a jazzy night club years earlier where Simon first fell for Linnet, and a rather unnecessary flashback to World War One in which we learn why the good detective has such an outlandishly large moustache (to hide a war wound.) take up time and don’t pay off very well for the audience.
Other flaws include anachronisms and outlandish dialogue throughout the two hour and seven-minute film (which seems longer.)
Anachronisms (things that don’t belong in the time period) abound. Climbing on the pyramids while flying a kite, Tom Bateman’s character Bouc, who appeared as the character in the much more commercially successful Branagh film “Murder on the Orient Express,” jokingly, but clearly, alludes to the famous line in the film Casablanca (“Of all the gin joints in all the world...”) when he notices Poirot watching below. But that’s a 1942 film, not yet released, since this film is set in 1937.
The guitarist in the jazz club’s band is playing a Gibson hollow body electric guitar. Gibson didn't make hollow body electric guitar until 1958. (Not to mention the music, which seems later than 1937, but could have dated from that era.)
The dancing in the jazz club was NOT of the era, however. Miley Cyrus could have learned her twerking skills from what Simon and Jacqueline do on the dance floor.
Another: Helium-filled balloons fly from the exterior of the ship, but inside, the balloons fall from the ceiling, apparently air-filled.
And so on.
The dialogue is at times wooden and at other times ludicrous. One hilarious example is when Gal Gadot’s Linnet welcomes the guests to the ship, she exclaims, in an overly exaggerated and even campy tone, “We have the Karnak [the ship’s name] all to ourselves, a chef, and enough champagne to fill Nile!” She then exaggeratingly tosses the contents of her glass overboard into the river, as if to illustrate the point.
To make things worse, she
pronounces “champagne” as "SHIMPaine" unlike any American like her character would ever do.
The scene has been the subject of ridicule in reviews and the video clip has become a meme on social media. Various media are panning her acting as evidence of her being a “terrible actress” a label she’s been carrying around since 2020’s Wonder Woman: 1984) One charitable Twitter user called her a "fascinatingly bad actor." And who can ever forget the “Imagine” YouTube video Gadot put together during the pandemic, which received endless ridicule?
All of this is not great for the film's eventual box office take.
Poirot/Branagh himself has some ludicrous, overly dramatic lines, as well, among them being, “The crime is murder. The murderer is one of you. I have investigated many crimes, but this has altered the shape of my soul. I am detective Hercule Poirot, and I will deliver your killer.” Okay, then.
Speaking of not great, the film’s other star, Armie Hammer, has for months been mired in controversy, accused of raping and assaulting women and making strange comments to them implying he is a cannibal. The film was delayed for 18 months due to the pandemic, and he has not been part of a tour to promote the film’s release, but a weak $12 million opening weekend may be partly due to his involvement.
The film has other elements, which are neither negative nor positive, but are transparently designed to get the film qualified for Oscar nominations. Namely, the inclusion of the black jazz performer (Letitia Wright) and her mother, who are portrayed UBER sympathetically (as wholly expected for a 21st Century film) and two other women who are, in the film (but NOT in Agatha Christie’s original book) exposed by the crafty detective as lesbian lovers. Such tokenism – sorry, "inclusion” - is required of ALL films to qualify for a nomination, however silly and anachronistic it may be in a film taking place in 1930s Egypt.
That said, it’s neither here nor there to me, and doesn’t help or hurt the film, though it does distract from the slow boiling plot, which doesn’t start getting interesting until well past the half point, one hour in.
(It should be noted that Wright has faced controversy, too, for posting a YouTube video questioning the safety of COVID-19 vaccines - as has Brand - and allegedly making transphobic comments, two things that get you “cancelled” in liberal Hollywood these days.)
A barely
recognizable Russell Brand (who puts in a good performance) also appears here,
but you might not care about his character.
The murder itself (or series of them) is a true mystery and is resolved cleverly by Poirot. The murderer and accomplice get their just desserts in the end, but a less dramatic ending for them both would have worked just as well, as it did in the book.
While flawed, Death on the Nile is watchable, and tolerable. Wait to stream it, though. It will likely be online very soon.
