Stage fright
SEE HOW THEY RUN Cert 12A ★★★★ In cinemas now
The old-fashioned whodunnit is enjoying a comeback. Next month sees the release of Amsterdam, a 1930s-set murder-mystery starring Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and Robert De Niro. And at Christmas, Daniel Craig returns as sleuth Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion, the sequel to the 2019 hit Knives Out.
This week, we are treated to two, Bodies Bodies Bodies (see right) and this ingenious comedy, which takes a sideways look at Agatha Christie’s long-running West End play The Mousetrap.
Made more in the spirit of Margaret Rutherford’s farcical Marple than Kenneth
Branagh’s dour Poirot, this entertaining Brit flick offers two whodunnits for the price of one.
We’re in the 1950s as the original cast celebrates the play’s 100th performance in the bar of the Ambassador Theatre when the body of a Hollywood director is discovered on its famous stage.
The obnoxious Leo Kopernick (Adrien Brody) had been working on a movie adaptation with precious playwright Mervyn Cocker-norris (David Oyelowo).
The world-weary Inspector Stoppard and enthusiastic rookie Constable Stalker (Sam Rockwell and Saoirse Ronan, both excellent) find no shortage of suspects.
At the celebrations, a drunken Kopernick incurred the wrath of the play’s star, darling Dickie Attenborough (a very funny Harris Dickinson).
The prissy Cocker-norris had clashed with the crass American too. And it turns out Kopernick had blackmailed Reece Shearsmith’s film producer into paying for his plush suite at the Savoy.
In the tradition of the big-screen murder mystery, the setting offers period glamour, the plot sees the immoral rich get their just desserts, and a tidy puzzle allows us to escape the complexities of an uncertain world.
So why is the whodunnit having a moment? There may be clues in the previous paragraph.
Setting offers period glamour and the plot sees immoral rich get their just desserts