Review of Murder on the Orient Express (2017) by Viniciusbrito — 30 Mar 2018

The movie is based on a book, that tells the story of a investigation that happened in a train, when everybody is a suspect. During a trip, that one of the best detectives of the world is in, a murder occur, then for innocent not get guilty, he decides to solve it.

The plot is very well made, how they introduced all the characters and made sure for you to know at least a little about them all is a very good choice for the storytelling, after the murder every single one of the passengers of the train are interrogated by Hercule Poirot, the detective, and there you can get who is lying, the pieces start getting together, you can make your guesses on who probably did it, what happend and it never gets to obvious and easy, at least until the very end.

The cast for this movie draws attention, a lot of big actors having samll roles but all much well done, deserving a greater prominence we have Kenneth Branagh, interpreting the great detective and full of quirks Hercule Poirot, he convinces us that he really know what he is doing and talking about, he did a eye job that is always alive it's always moving and detecting, also how uncomfortable he get when he sees something ou of pattern, it never gets forced or ugly, all works with his character, the way that he did portrayed before the murder and after is very different, changing his aspects and getting much more serious, great job. Johnny Depp is very functional, he pass the idea of fear and menacing at the same time, his expressions aren't all forced like what he does generally, I liked. Daisy Ridley very much, doing a kind and smart woman, she can convince you and have the necessary expression to say to us what the character doesn't want to. Michelle Pfeiffer, William Dafoe, Josh Gad, Judi Dench and Penélope Cruz, all of them can pass emotions withe her eyes, expressions tons of voice, they all did a pretty good job.

They decided to fill the train with archetypes, you have a bunch of stars in hollywood interpreting stereotyped classes, and that worked because you really felt that the train had life, that actually was people and different peoples there, that talked in their particular way, giving dynamics.

One of the bests things about the movie, besides the cast, is the cinematopgrahy, it's phenomenal, I loved watching the movie much because of what I was seing, it is beautiful, the image composition is aways telling something. Are moments when some person face is filmed, and the reflexion shows 2 faces, simbolizing that the person have a duality, that is hiding something, in some moments show 3 faces, indicating the same thing. It does contains an amount of longs takes that plays with the cameras and make you really understand how it is inside of the train, crating a great experience in such a small space, having creative framework, showing things that normally wouldn't have how do it because of the small place. There is one specifically that follows the characters from outside to inside of the train, it is beautiful and wiht mean. Also have some Dutch angles, to show that something is confused there. It's perfect in technical aspects.

The sound mixer, that outside of the train is one, inside is other, is more suppressed. Soundtrack is very quiet and for some moments it's different in a way that does trick us, implicating something that isn't, very caricature.

The montage for the movie didn't worked all the time, many sudden breaks happend, some scenes felt that had something missing, some scene for a transition or something like that.

For me the movie worked out very well, combining two different stories into one, everything maked sense at the end, and for me almost nothings was out of place, I can't say that it was perfect, but is really a memorable investigation thriller, one of the most positive points of the movie is that you can understand every sides of the story, it will not be like everybody saying that this should happen or that, people can really get divided with it, the killer kills a killer story. Visually stunning, a strong cast and a good mystery.