A Masterpiece!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I'm quite amazed at the level of vitriol that this film seems to evoke. It's actually one of my favorite movies.I find that Donald Sutherland's performance compelling and subtle and the visuals gorgeous. The choice of Dave Brubeck's music as a soundtrack, while challenging at times presents an fascinating counterpoint to the visual narrative.Undoubtedly the film is unfaithful to the novel. I guess I've been around too long to care that much. Although I enjoy Christie, her *own* work was quite uneven (I can't even begin to count the holes in Mousetrap) so somehow I can't see her work as being as sacred as other reviewers.

This film is on my list of worst movies ever made. The story is disconnected and it is difficult to understand what is going on or the reason for the characters' actions. All films need to have an inner logic, and this film just doesn't have it - the story doesn't make any sense. To see Faye Dunaway, Christopher Plummer and Diana Quick wasting their talents in this movie is a crime. Faye Dunaway is the lucky one, because she plays the victim and gets killed early in the film. On the other hand, Donald Sutherland must be an amazing actor because he manages to look good in spite of bad directing and bad writing; his performance is believable and he manages to stay in character in spite of everything. If Dame Agatha Christie were alive she would die laughing! The movie is that bad!

It is difficult to describe this film without profanity. The rights to the book were clearly bought because of the title. I am a purist Agatha Christie fan, so I dislike adaptations which spoil her work. Normally, after the first three or four viewings, they grow on me (It happened with "Appointment with Death", it happened with the remake of "Murder on the Orient Express" and it happened with the remake of "Sparkling Cyanide"). I still hate this film. The cast are talented, but wasted - especially Faye Dunaway, who has about three words. The music is completely out of place. I expected them to start playing "The Merry Old Land of Oz" at the hanging. The story is unraveled ploddingly; a fiasco. I didn't understand it until I read the book. This is a pure waste of film.

The film begins with some style with the viewer taking a leisure boat ride to a small village in England with a pleasant Dave Brubeck score in the background. Brubeck's score continues through the movie and by the first half hour becomes annoying due to its over use. Donald Sutherland is layed back as an American doctor who after a two year expedition to Antarctica learns he was the only alibi to a hitch hiking stranger accused of murder and ultimately hung. True to Agatha Christie Sutherland becomes a sleuth and we are introduced to the stranger's family and associates. All the actors do a good job but are given little to do. Rarely do we see them interact with each other and nearly the entire film Donald Sutherland is interviewing each of the cast one-on-one...including the police! It doesn't seem any of the suspects get much screen time at all. Mid-way the director makes a truly terrible decision to replay some of the audio from previous scenes over present scenes (to represent Donald Sutherland thinking) including muddled whispering under more of Dave Brubeck's score. The plot is such a boring mess and impossible to keep up with. We never meet anyone long enough to remember their name! By the end of the film it becomes clear it really doesn't matter. At the beginning the police tells Donald Sutherland not to get involved that it is not worth it and at the end Donald and the viewers agree. THEN WHY MAKE THE FILM?????? The one joyous spark to the entire film was Cassie Stuart (Isabella in BBC's "Northanger Abbey") as the innocent stranger's wife. Her face and voice literally lit up the dark and damp film in her two scenes which occur in the last twenty minutes of the movie. She has such fun with her topless scene she should have won a special award just for attempting to bring some entertainment to an otherwise dreary movie.