Review of Crooked House (2017) by Tim M — 30 Dec 2018

'Crooked House' is a British mystery film based on Agatha Christie's 1949 novel of the same name. It's like a game of clue, but for actors all acting in movies that are different. Stay for the Glenn Close performance and leave for the cliched writing. This is a lukewarm bath after not taking one for 3 days.... It's refreshing yet mildly annoying. I didn't care about the characters and I certainly didn't understand why I should. It's in large part due to the overwhelming number of people we're forced token track of in this whodunit. With all these backstories to figure out it's no wonder why the train doesn't find the tracks until nearly the third act when you start to actually give a darn. By then many will have tuned out but if you're still around for this there is a payoff. It's a take it or leave it picture that puts me on the middle of the fence.

Close is tremendous and has fantastic chemistry with Max Irons who plans the detective investigating the murder. The rest of the cast is severely underused. I can only imagine how much film was left on the cutting room floor. Several actors left me wanting more including Preston Nyman as a sassiest of the Leonides clan, but when you have this many suspects there just isn't enough screen time to go around which leaves me with a sense of emptiness. Final Score: 6.1/10.