Movie Review

Murder on the Orient Express tries hard to find a clue

When done right, murder mysteries can be some of the most effective stories told on film. The confidence of the detective, the subtle and overt clues sprinkled in throughout, the cycling through potential suspects — each of these and more often make for riveting viewing.

Mystery writer Agatha Christie is renowned for her ability to spin a good tale, so it seems difficult to mess up one of her most popular stories, Murder on the Orient Express. And yet director Kenneth Branagh and writer Michael Green (who is wrapping up an extraordinarily busy year that also included Logan, Alien: Covenant, and Blade Runner 2049) never get a handle on the material.

Branagh does double duty as detective Hercule Poirot, who’s in demand all over the world because of his unique skills. After receiving a message asking for his help in Europe, Poirot, at the last minute, boards the Orient Express train traveling from Turkey. It’s a fortuitous turn of events, as he’s in place to try to solve a murder that happens during the first night of the journey.

Naturally, everyone is a suspect, including Mary Debenham (Daisy Ridley), Dr. Arbuthnot (Leslie Odom, Jr.), Hector MacQueen (Josh Gad), Caroline Hubbard (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Princess Dragomiroff (Judi Dench). Poirot methodically interviews all of them, slowly but surely deducing exactly what happened that fateful night.

Early on, a smattering of funny scenes suggests that Branagh and Green will try to keep the film light while dealing with something deadly serious. Once on the train, though, the story loses its sense of humor almost completely, leaving the audience with the intricacies of the mystery as the only source of entertainment.

That wouldn’t be an issue if the story was suitably thrilling. Unfortunately, at least the way Branagh stages it, the film is almost devoid of any suspense. It appears the plot has barely been updated, if at all, and as it stands, it’s too convoluted and stuffy to be entertaining.

Much of the fun of a good mystery is being able to figure things out alongside the detective or other characters. Branagh keeps us mostly in the dark about the process, choosing instead to focus on the all-knowing intellect of Poirot. When he figures out the meaning of a clue, there’s no great sense of discovery; it’s a simple building block toward the solution.

If you’ve read the book, you know that the murder is just one of the mysterious things Poirot discovers on the train. For the other to be effective, it requires us to actually care about the rest of the characters. Unfortunately, we never get a sense of who anybody is but Poirot. Each of the other characters might as well be a mannequin given the emotional impact they have on the story.

For all the star power in the film (Penelope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Derek Jacobi also make appearances), Branagh is the only one who’s halfway interesting. Even then, Poirot’s glorious mustache is most of the appeal, as the feat of hair engineering runs roughshod over anything Branagh is saying.

This version of Murder on the Orient Express demonstrates the danger of revering source material too highly. It may have been crackling good entertainment in 1934, but it leaves a lot to be desired in 2017.

Kenneth Branagh in Murder on the Orient Express.

Kenneth Branagh in Murder on the Orient Express

Photo by Nicola Dove

Kenneth Branagh in Murder on the Orient Express.

Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records spins new location in Garland

Josey Records

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

They chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."

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