Murder on the Orient Express

An old Agatha Christie classic starring the detective Hercule Poirot. I watched the latest film adaptation directed by Englishman Ken Branagh.

He also plays the role of the Belgian detective with the sharp moustache and a penchant for symmetry and order. The film is littered with a stellar cast including Penelope Cruz and Michelle Pfeiffer along with Johnny Depp and Willem Dafoe rounding out with Dame Judi Dench.

All the cast are passengers on the luxury train that left Istanbul in Turkey to points west. The plot centers on finding out who murdered Ratchet (Depp's character). It turns out that Ratchett himself was a rather nasty scoundrel and killer in his past life.

Poirot with his keen eye for observation (material and non) and an ability to observe the human condition and its foibles narrows down the motive among all passengers who had access to Ratchett. He concludes with dramatic flourish after he makes his determination of who the killer is whilst stranded in the Balkan mountains, (somewhere in Bulgaria is my best guess).

The train itself is a character in the film and is a cinematographic gem.

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