Kenneth Branagh

Review of “A Haunting in Venice”

Death comes for us all. If we’re lucky, we live a long and happy life and die peacefully in our sleep. Sadly, that isn’t the destiny of everyone. Some struggle with disease, physical and/or mental. Some die by their choices, either living a life filled with unhealthy food and lack of exercise, or by the substances they choose to use to dull the pain of their existence. Others have no choice in the matter and their lives are snuffed out by the decisions of those known or unknown to them. There are car crashes, building collapses, natural disasters, crime, war and countless other ways to be removed from this mortal coil. All this is a serious bummer, I know, but in movies, TV shows and books, watching a detective piece together and facts of a death, either mundane or diabolical, expose the cause and those responsible can be entertaining and thrilling. My wife and I recently rewatched all the episodes of “Columbo” that aired back in the 1960’s and 1970’s and was revived from 1989 until 2003. The character of Columbo made a show of his bumbling manner and disheveled appearance, leading the killer to believe the police detective was easily deceived. This would lead the killer, whom Columbo had suspected from their first meeting, to make mistakes and lead to their eventual capture. A detective who never wants anyone to question his intelligence is the creation of writer Agatha Christie, the Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. If the question is ever asked, Poirot is quick to proclaim himself the greatest detective in the world. All his skill at deduction is required as he faces a killer in an alleged haunted house in “A Haunting in Venice.”

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is living in Venice, Italy, after retiring from detecting. Despite his refusal to take a new case, people line up at the entrance to his home begging for his help. He is protected from these desperate people by a retired policeman turned bodyguard Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio). While at his home, Poirot is approached by Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), a friend and writer of crime novels. Her fictional detective is based on Poirot after following him around on a case where the pair develop an uneasy friendship. Oliver wants Poirot to accompany her to a séance at the palazzo of Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), an opera singer that retired following the death by suicide of her teenage daughter Alicia (Rowan Robinson) following a period of mental illness. The séance will be conducted by psychic medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) who has recently been released from prison on a charge of witchcraft. Oliver cannot figure out how Reynolds is able to make her fake seances look so real and wants Poirot to expose her. Aside from Poirot, Oliver, Mrs. Drake and Vitale, others in attendance are Maxime Gerard (Kyle Allen), Alicia’s former fiancé, Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), Dr. Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan) who cared for Alicia in her last days, Leopold Ferrier (Jude Hill) the doctor’s child, and Desdemona Holland (Emma Laird) an assistant to Reynolds. During the séance, Poirot reveals Nicholas Holland (Ali Khan) one of Reynolds’ assistants and Desdemona’s brother, hiding in a fireplace and using a device to create some of the odd happenings. Despite this, Reynolds speaks in an altered voice and, speaking as Alicia, says she was murdered without identifying who is responsible. After the séance, one of the participants is murdered, their body impaled on the raised arm of a statue outside the palazzo. Due to a heavy storm the police are unable to come to the scene and no boats can transport the survivors away. Despite this, Poirot locks all the exits and announces no one can leave until he has captured the killer.

Star and director Kenneth Branagh has carved out a special place in the world of Agatha Christie adaptations with his take on Hercule Poirot. His three films, “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Death on the Nile” and now “A Haunting in Venice,” have given a bit of perspective on the idiosyncrasies of the detective. We learn in the first film of his need for order and consistency. In the second film, the specific reason for his ornate mustache is revealed, but I don’t know if this is from Christie’s books or a creation of the scriptwriters. In this film, we see an older, more cynical Poirot that has seen too much death, causing him to question the existence of God and an afterlife. These insights also give us a glimpse into the reason Poirot is such a good detective.

The massive cast of “A Haunting in Venice” causes the juicy story beats to be spread a bit too thin. Each person is a suspect mostly because of their proximity to those in the house. Even the young son of Dr. Ferrier is suspected at one point. We only learn later why some have more reason to be the killer than others. That’s good. Otherwise, the movie would only be about a half hour long. Still given the size of the cast and the sprawling multi-floor palazzo, the important moments tend to be spread about almost randomly.

The important clue of the case, much like in “Death on the Nile,” is revealed in a ham-fisted way that is impossible to miss. But just to make sure it registers; the script repeats the clue a couple of times like it’s banging a gong. You’ll know the item in question is important whether you wanted to or not. You may not understand why it’s important, but you can’t miss that it is.

The mixture of a murder mystery with the unknown of a possibly haunted house makes “A Haunting in Venice” the most interesting of the Branagh Poirot movies. While there is no chance the detective won’t put all the pieces together and expose the very living villain of the piece, there is some room for doubt as the story has Poirot questioning his own senses. He’s seeing people that aren’t there and hearing voices no one else hears. Is this the paranormal? Are there ghosts and spirits haunting the palazzo? Will Poirot be forced to admit there is more than his formidable mind can comprehend? One will need to watch the film to get all these answers and it is well worth the trip to the theater and the time to find out.

“A Haunting in Venice” is rated PG-13 for some strong violence, disturbing images and thematic elements. Poirot is attacked and nearly drowned. We see a flashback of Alicia Drake falling into the canal and sinking under the water several times. We see the first murder victim impaled on the statue, first in shadow and then lit. There is a fistfight between two men in the house. People’s skeletons are discovered in the home. A character discusses liberating a Nazi death camp at the end of World War II and some of the things he and other soldiers did. Foul language is limited to the use of one word.

I wasn’t a huge fan of “Murder on the Orient Express” nor “Death on the Nile.” I thought the first film did nothing new with the story and the second was particularly heavy-handed with revealing the clue that breaks the case. While “A Haunting in Venice” commits a similar sin to “Nile,” the overall feel of the film, the creepy location, the haunting backstory of the house and a murder after a séance, combine with a stellar cast and some interesting camera choices by director Branagh and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos to make this haunted house worth a visit, even if it is only September.

“A Haunting in Venice” gets four stars out of five.

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Review of “Tenet”

A CIA operative known only as the Protagonist (John David Washington) is given a case to prevent a third world war. Working with another agent, Neil (Robert Pattinson), he must infiltrate the operation of Russian oligarch Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh) by going through his art dealer wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki). The war the agents are trying to prevent is one that won’t be fought with conventional or nuclear weapons; this war will be fought using the flow of time. Someone has figured out a way to control entropy, changing the normal order of cause and effect. If a government or terrorist group could observe the events of the future, they could counter any efforts to stop their plans. The past, present and future are at stake.

Trying to explain the story of “Tenet” is like teaching a squid how to write. It’s complicated, messy and I don’t think I have the intelligence to grasp it all. Writer and director Christopher Nolan has crafted a bizarre and labyrinthian story of technology, power and greed with the fate of the world in the balance. I won’t be surprised if audiences are deeply divided in their opinions on the film with some thinking it’s a masterpiece while other find it taxing and incoherent. Both will be correct. Much like cause and effect are reversed in the film, feelings about it will also travel in both directions. While struggled as I watched the movie and the alternating passage of time, sometimes occurring simultaneously, I felt the door to a level of understanding crack ever so slightly as the events played out. I happen to be one that thinks “Tenet” is brilliant.

That doesn’t mean it is flawless. The dialog can be dense when characters are discussing the finer points of entropy and how the rules of one person travelling in one direction while the rest of the world is moving in another. And perhaps is was the speaker set up in the theater, but I had a hard time understanding what characters were saying from scene to scene. Maybe it was the ambient background noise on the soundtrack mixed with the various accents, but some of the dialog was garbled and lost to me.

Otherwise, the movie is also unbearably loud. The action scenes with guns, explosions and car crashes left my ears ringing. I would have chocked that up to my individual theater, but I’ve seen other viewers post how near deafening the volume is. This appears to be a deliberate choice by Nolan and the studio to crank up the sound and beat the audience into aural submission. If you have especially sensitive hearing or suffer from hearing loss, you may want to bring ear protection just in case.

Have you ever had a TV show suggested to you and the suggester says, “It really gets good by episode 3,” or “The second season is where it takes off”? That’s kind of how “Tenet” is. Things won’t make much sense in the early scenes, and you’ll wonder if Nolan has let you down with a subpar effort. However, visuals you’ll find confounding will make more sense as you go through the story. By the end, scattered and random events early will finally become clear. Nolan has made a movie that is the epitome of the conspiracy theorist cork board with pictures, headlines and random pieces of paper covered in scribbles connected with push pins and red string.

While the story takes some time to make sense, the performances will hold your interest until your brain catches up. While the film is filled with characters, our four main players dominate the screen and ably so. John David Washington keeps his character’s emotions in check, just as a season CIA operative would. While he’s facing an unprecedented situation, Washington’s Protagonist rolls with it. While some may criticize his performance as dull, I found his ever in control operative to be a source of calm in a temporal storm.

Debicki, Pattinson and Branagh provide all the emotion for the film. Debicki’s Kat is a woman in a loveless marriage to a cold and cruel man holding their son as leverage over her. Her flares of anger and pain ring so true they caused me to wince. Pattinson provides a bit of comic relief as Neil. Allowed to speak with his British accent, Pattinson’s Neil is droll and a tiny bit condescending while also being a master of understatement. Neil is the Protagonists fixer, gofer and sounding board. His role is to give the CIA operative the tools and materials he needs to do the job. Providing a laugh along the way is a bonus. Branagh’s Sator is a fairly standard villain but provides flashes of the madness and cruelty that make him rise above. Branagh slinks through some scenes like a python approaching his prey. In other scenes he’s brash and big like a bull elephant charging through the African plains. While the role doesn’t provide much meat on the bone, Branagh strips it clean and makes a meal from the part.

“Tenet” is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some suggestive references and brief strong language. There are fights, shootings and crashes of various types throughout the film. Gore is kept to a minimum even during a scene of torture. A 747 is crashed into a building. A couple of people are shot at close range. A person is beaten to death with an unusual object. Foul language is scattered and mile except for one F-Bomb.

The action scenes in “Tenet” are unconventional but thrilling. Some of them happen in regular time while others are going backwards. Some scenes have some of the characters travelling in one direction while other in the same scene are going backwards. Nolan filmed the actors doing the scenes forward and backward so he could splice the two together as seamlessly as possible. For the most part it works, but sometimes people are clearly running backward and then had the film reversed and vice versa. Those moments are rare and don’t ruin what is otherwise a very good film. I would have liked a clearer understanding of what’s causing the reversal of time and would also have liked a better reason for why the bad guys wanted to fulfill their ultimate goal. That said, “Tenet” is a brain-breaking sci-fi/action/thriller that, if you’re comfortable heading to the theater, should be seen on the big screen. Just remember to wear your mask.

“Tenet” gets four stars out of five.

Release schedules are still thin so my return to reviewing may be erratic for the foreseeable future.

Listen to Comedy Tragedy Marriage, a podcast about life, love and entertainment, available wherever you get podcasts. Follow me on Twitter @moviemanstan and send emails to stanthemovieman123@gmail.com.