Sleuth

(Great Britain/USA, 2007, 89 minutes)

A best-selling crime writer and the young actor who is his estranged wife's lover have a tense meeting at the former's house that spirals into crime. Dull, flashy update of the original 1970s play and film (directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine) that reads the plot as covert class struggle but seems more interested in its striking but gratuitous set design than in its plot or the cast's valiant efforts. Rather pointless.

 

A Mandate Pictures release. Castle Rock Entertainment presents a Riff Raff Pictures/Timnick Films production. Starring Michael Caine, Jude Law. Directed by Kenneth Branagh; produced by Jude Law, Simon Halfon, Tom Sternberg, Marion Pilowsky, Kenneth Branagh, Simon Moseley; screenplay by Harold Pinter, based on the play by Anthony Shaffer, Sleuth; music by Patrick Doyle; director of photography (DeLuxe, Panavision), Haris Zambarloukos; production designer, Tim Harvey; costume designer, Alexandre Byrne; film editor, Neil Farrell.