I understand and can appreciate that Sleuth is a remake of an apparently loved 1972 feature film, which also starred Michael Caine, but in the younger role played this time around by Jude Law. I never saw the original, but its 8.2 out of 10 rating at IMDb leads me to believe people liked it, but I cannot get on board with this latest incarnation, at least not the whole movie as it goes from intriguing to utterly ridiculous.
Somehow the original film ran for two hours 18 minutes, but this latest version has been sliced down to just under an hour and a half. Too bad after the first 45 minutes it goes from an impressive adaptation of the Anthony Shaffer play into a schlocky mess. The beginning of this film is filled with amazing dialogue acted out expertly by both Law and Caine in a way that it reminded me of the playful yet poignant dialogue in Patrick Marber’s script for Closer, but the end almost feels like a Monty Python film before it quickly snaps back to reality in the final frames.
Law plays the part of Milo Tindle very similarly to the way Natalie Portman read her lines as Alice in Closer. He acts it out in a way that he is the more naive of the two while Caine plays the role of Andrew Wyke, a knowledgeable, and in control, player in a game that is about to get out of hand. You see, Milo is banging Andrew’s wife and has come to Andrew’s pimped out spread in an effort to get him to finally sign the divorce papers. Andrew is a famed author and doesn’t seem keen on the idea of divorce and proposes to Milo that the two of them stage a robbery in which Milo will steal some jewels, pawn them off for cash, Andrew will get the insurance money and all will live happily ever after.
When Milo agrees to the idea you will find yourself cocking your head in wonderment, but you go along with it because the dialogue and story are both intriguing and you still wonder how it is all going to play out. Unfortunately the end result of the staged break-in is interesting but it all goes awry once the complete plot of the story is revealed. It’s unfortunate since both Law and Caine are fantastic in this film.
It isn’t often we come across such fantastic words for two great actors to deliver and I just wish this film had been cut down to only 45 minutes, because it would have been a winner. The final half of this film, however, completely ruined it for me.
