Murder on the Orient Express

Starring: David Suchet, Brian J. Smith, David Morissey, Eileen Atkins, Barbara Hershey and more

Airing: Masterpiece Mystery July 11th 2010 9pmEST

All right folks so here's the big day!  And guess what?  My family won't let me watch it!  ::sigh:: I have to wait until later tonight.

Prelims:

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I finally got to watch it uninterrupted, without any sort of glitching, skipping, pixelating picture!  FIVE DAYS LATER THAN IT WAS BROADCAST--but whatever I'm just happy to have finally seen it.

Hercule Poirot:

Suchet's Poirot Mysteries are rather (in)famous for changing around not only the ending, but also certain character points of Poirot's.  His reactions, mainly.  I have yet to see this addressed by Suchet or the production staff for Agatha Christie's Poirot, but I suspect that someone wants to show that Poirot is more human then he appears in the books.  Let's face it Poirot is one cold customer--he has no family to speak of, his friends generally consist of Hastings and a few other souls (mostly Hastings though), he spends much of his time traveling from country to country and coolly relates what happened during each investigation.

He is a student of human behaviors, but more importantly he is a detached observer of humanity.

Before the Murder:

In Murder on the Orient Express we see Poirot become vehement on several occasions, plus display downright callous disregard on at least two occasions.  The movie begins with Poirot coldly condemning a young lieutenant for his actions.  The lieutenant looks uncomfortable, nervous and scared quite frankly while Poirot rages about justice.  At the end of his speech, to which many of the other officers looked uneasy, the lieutenant shoots himself in the head (point blank, ignore how badly done that make up job was).  The officer in charge stiffly thanks Poirot for cleaning up a potentially bad scandal.

Later Poirot observes several of the would be passengers on the Orient Express, taking note as he always does of their unique behavior patterns, trying ti assemble why they are acting thusly.  While transversing the streets he happens to witness a woman being hounded by a mob.  The woman is being accused of infidelity, but also of carrying that man's child.  Her punishment, according to the laws of her people, is to be stoned to death.  Miss Debenham and Colonel Arbuthnot have also viewed the spectacle, with Miss Debenham being restrained by Arbuthnot so as not to interfere.  Poirot views all this with barely a glimmer of interest before walking away.

These would be the first of several changes from the book to the movie.  The scene with the Lieutenant is recounted in the book, but we don't see it (plus its the French Army, not a British matter).  We aren't given any facts on the case beyond that it involved the death of a officer and resignation of another--the reasoning, the particulars of the case aren't discussed.  The woman being stoned to death is entirely new and is basically a plot point contrivance for later in the movie.

The particulars of how Poirot meets and greets the passengers are of little consequence quite frankly.  Nothing really changes about that except perhaps the circumstances, but that isn't very important.  How Poirot is originally approached by Ratchett is certainly different--mostly in his manner and address.  The Ratchett of this movie is less of a bully and blowhard and more fearful.  He is very religious (or at least he is seeking redemption quite assiduously), though this is the first time I can remember seeing Poirot pray as well.  This may have been to show that his views justice as a matter of moral authority, but also to contrast against Ratchett's deathbed repent.  There is also no mention of Ratchett being ill (as in the book or the 1974 version).

Our Suspects:
They seemed to have made many of the suspects younger.  With the exception of Schmidt and Princess Dragomiroff, everyone seems to have been de-aged to roughly their mid-20's to mid-40's.  Well I suppose this is the proper age for Debenham and MacQueen, but I distinctly remember Ohlsson being a much older woman then she who portrays her in the movie.


Also Foscarelli is made to be Italian-American, not purely Italian.  The relationship between Arbuthnot and Debenham is also downplayed in the book, whereas in the movie  (maybe because I think David Morrissey, who plays Arbuthnot in the movie, is a romantic figure, thank you Sense and Sensibility) you can feel the tension between them more keenly.

It felt as if Dr. Constantine seemed more of a busybody than in the book, though I'm not sure how much of that was because Poirot seemed less involved in this mystery than usual. 

The Murder:

This takes place in more or less the same fashion.  We do not see a lady in a red kimono walking down the hallway, various motivations are slightly changed so as to explain changes in character (such as Ohlsson's job, or Schmidt's seemingly super-lady in waiting abilities) and Ratchett still dies as he does in the book.  And the truth as to why he died is still the same.

Poirot's investigation is less...exciting than usual.  I want to lay the blame on the fact that I know the outcome and so its not as interesting to see all the alibis and loopholes, but really its because self-righteous Poirot from the beginning is the one we're stuck with throughout the entire movie.  Poirot in the books always seemed interested in first the truth and second justice--the two always went hand in hand for him.  For Murder on the Orient Express however Poirot has come to a moral crossroads.  Which is more important in the end?  The truth or true justice?  The murderer killed Ratchett because of a horrific crime he helped to commit--and got away with!--years before.  For that murderer 'justice' had not been done and had to be avenged.  But if Poirot reveals the truth of the matter to the cops, is he really helping justice?

This is really something of a philosophical question, one I get into every time with my Uncle.  My Uncle is a stout believer that religious moral authority (of which Poirot is saturated in for this movie) comes first above all else--so even though Ratchett committed a horrible crime, he should not have been killed.  The murderer of Ratchett should be held responsible all the same.  I'm more in line with the murderer's viewpoints; Ratchett (in the book at least, less so in the movie, I'll get to this in a second) is a cruel, bully of a man who made off with the money, left his cohorts to hang in the wind and destroyed the lives of at least a dozen people with one thoughtless act.  He deserved to die for that.

The problem in the movie is that Ratchett is shown to be a bully of a man, but he's also shown to be quite desperate to find redemption for what he did.  He prays, he is giving the money back (supposedly), he is truly sorry for what he did.  Poirot is on his side for much of the movie, feeling he is the victim.  I think they did this so as to give the audience more credible evidence as to why Poirot would so obviously take the side of a bad man; if things had remained so, then the audience would hate Poirot and feel he's going against his own integrity too obviously. 

After the Murder/Investigation:

As I said earlier this was one of the least exciting cases ever, made more so by the fact that Poirot was so self-righteous and wasn't open to the possibility that Ratchett was killed for a good reason.  After finding out who he truly was, he still defended him as the victim.  The Poirot of the book is more unbiased.  He finds out that Ratchett is indeed a bad man and he than turns his head to figuring out the true motivations of the murderer.  He doesn't condemn the murderer, he insteads reserves judgment until he has all the facts. 

The earlier scene with the woman being stoned to death (a 'justice' under her people's law) is brought up again by Miss Debenham.  He says that it was justice, that the woman understood the law and still chose to break those laws.  Miss Debenham argues that for one mistake the woman should be killed?  That maybe there were other circumstances involved that should have played a part in the judgment.  Poirot is quite insistent that justice is justice, there is no 'out' if you break the law.

During his recounting of what happened Poirot becomes positively livid as the suspects defend themselves.  He bellows that what happened to Ratchett was not justice it was murder and that is wrong.  This is completely different from the book; in the book Poirot deduces what has happened, gathers everyone to hear his deductions (with the actual murderer implicated) and then calmly puts forth another proposal (that of a mysterious man who came aboard, killed Ratchett and than left). He then left the final word to the conductor, Mr. Bouc, to decide which seemed more likely.

In the movie Poirot alone is given the job of deciding as he sets off to talk to the police about what transpired.  There is a tense moment when all the suspects watch him nervously, and Miss Debenham gives him the Look of Meaning, and finally Poirot tells forth the second accounting of events.  Foresensics being what they were back in the 30's, well no one questioned the great Poirot!

Overall Impression:

I was let down.  Quite simply.  I had great expectations, being a diehard lover of Suchet at Poirot, but I felt they took this in the wrong direction.  Making Poirot and Ratchett both so religious, and making Poirot so self-righteous turned me off and made me wonder if this was really Poirot.  He does not get so impassioned, he deduces things rationally and logically.  He does not let his 'moral authority' interfere.

In the Special aired, with Suchet on the Orient Express (giving us a tour of the actual train, the stops it would have made and the journey it would take along with the history of the Orient Express), Suchet makes a point to say that this is an important moment in Poirot's life.  A huge moment when he has to change his thinking.  To a certain degree I agree.  In the movie it certainly makes it out to be a big moment for Poirot--a huge change in his thinking and rationale.  In the book not so much, its downplayed and while important I don't think its quite the shake-up to his character the movie would have us believe.

So thoughts?