Review of Sleuth

Review: Sleuth

Having started life as a play in 1970 and been made into a movie shortly thereafter starring Michael Caine, Sleuth has now been remade, by way of a rewrite by playwright Harold Pinter. The story itself revolves around two men involved with the same woman: an older man that she is married to and a younger man that she has left him for. Jude Law, who already took over a Michael Caine role in the 2004 remake of Alfie, does so again and spars with Caine himself, who takes the older role. The film shows its origins as a play, not just in the focus on just the two characters, but in how the story falls so squarely into a three-act structure. The first doesn’t stray too far from Closer territory, where Law played this kind of lecherous playboy before. The second act left jaws dropped at it’s TIFF premier. And the third act derails the film into ho-hum ambiguous ground that, ever since Closer seems like the fashionable (or default) way to wrap-up a debate over sex and relationships: by leaving nothing wrapped-up at all.

Posted on 09/13/07 by: calmac 08:57 PM