SLEUTH

Release Date: 23rd November

Running Time: 88 mins

Starring

Michael Caine - Andrew Wyke

Jude Law - Milo Tindle

Director - Kenneth Brannagh

Screenplay - Harold Pinter

Sleuth is a very English affair. A remake of the 1972 film of the same name (directed by  Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and starring Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine), this version sees Michael Caine taking on Olivier's role as aging crime writer Andrew Wyke, while Jude Law steps into Caine's original shoes as Milo Tindle, the struggling actor who's stolen Wyke's wife. Got all that down the back? Right!

This is certainly a clever bit of casting, layering the theme of youth versus experience effectively. Unfortunately, it also creates the film's main problem - next to Michael Caine, Jude Law performance seems a bit, well, lack-lusture. Law may get by on his good looks in busier films, but Sleuth is a performance-centred character study of two men, an affair and a house.

That's not to say Law is a terrible actor, or puts in a completely awful performance. It's just that Pinter's subtle script presents the two leads with a lot of challenges, and while Michael Caine dazzles at every twist and turn, Law isn't always up to the task. When things become very "Pinter", with power games and psychological allusions, Caine's performance succeeds in darkly mystifies the audience while Law's can get, well, a little confusing.

Brannagh does a great job as director though, keeping the first half of the film ticking along quite nicely in true "great thriller" tradition, and successfully coupling Harold Pinter's excellent script, with disturbing camera angles, unsettling lighting and what could well be the least-cosy English home EVER filmed to keep the viewer suitably unnerved throughout the movie. There are also some very well-paced set pieces (such as the burglary in which Wyke offers to let Tindle break into his house so that the young actor can keep afford to maintain Wyke's luxury adjusted wife) which serve to keep the audience guessing about the motives and intelligence of both men. The film does lose a bit of steam towards the end (mainly due to Law's meandering performance) but Caine, Branagh and Pinter work well together to keep us interested enough to appreciate the ending.

Overall,  a film well worth watching for Caine alone - with a that will script should keep you guessing to the end!

CHECK OUT THE SLEUTH TRAILER HERE!

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