Murder on the Orient Express

Kenneth Branagh brings Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express to film this fall.  Set primarily inside a derailed luxury traincar on a snowy French mountainside, the film has a cozy, indulgent feeling that lends itself well to the near-Thanksgiving release date.  

Combined with a star-studded cast, including Penelope Cruz, Leslie Odom Jr., Derek Jacobi, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Josh Gad, Willem Dafoe, and Daisy Ridley, all lavishly dressed in 1930s finery, the film is riveting to the end.

"I have the advantage of seeing the world as it should be...there is right, there is wrong."  Renowned Detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh), noted for his enormous and fastidious mustache, introduces Murder on the Orient Express with the astute capture of a thief at the Wailing Wall.  

He encounters a second crime, the murder of Ratchett (Johnny Depp) while traveling to Paris on the Orient Express.  The at times arduous investigation into the suspects--the derailed train's only seventeen occupants--comprises the substance of this film, and challenges his black and white views on morality.  

 

The cast and their clothing perhaps outshine the story, and perhaps that doesn't matter.  I would like to know more about the trench coat Depp wore when he boarded the Orient Express.  And to petition the Academy to add a "Best Hair" category to the Oscars.

Orient has earned three times its budget, and the slate is already set for a sequel: Christie's Death on the Nile.  

Let's hope that Depp gets a lengthier role in this one.