A Haunting in Venice

I watch westerns and baseball because of my grandfather but I love murder mysteries because of my mom. 

Back in the before times we entertained ourselves every night around the television. No internet and no cell phones and there was, in middle class homes at least, only one television. I got a television for my bedroom and a Nintendo in middle school and it was a very big deal. 

But before that my entertainment choices were directed by my parents. Playoff basketball or baseball if it was on and my dad was home and if not, the night would mostly be filled with mysteries.

There was Murder She Wrote, Magnum PI, Simon and Simon, Spenser for Hire, Matlock, and, of course, Columbo. Mom, with a wry smile, would note that everyone in Hawaii wore long pants except for Tom Selleck, who wore short shorts. 

We marveled at how the most dangerous thing in the world was to be Jessica Fletcher’s friend. And, finally, how nearly every episode of Matlock began with an innocent person discovering a corpse and immediately grabbing a bloody knife or a smoking gun so they could leave their fingerprints on the murder weapon and be wrongly accused of evil. 

We teased these things because we loved them. We loved the genre. On those nights where a sporting event was on mom could be found sitting in the tv room reading an Agatha Christie novel or J.A. Jance or James Lee Burke if she wanted a mystery with New Orleans flavor. 

I grew up to be a reporter and have spent quality time with real police detectives and sat in jailhouses with murderers. Real life, and real detective work is of course, nothing like it is on the screen. 

In my adulthood I generally can’t watch the “realistic” ones. You know, where the murders are plausible and the detectives are broken. 

I’ve seen too much. 

But a detective story like this? Where the detective is as realistic as Sherlock Holmes and Tina Fey gets to play a conniving mystery writer and for reasons that don’t make any sense everyone has to spend a night in a haunted house in Venice while the bodies pile up? Sign me up! 

Kenneth Branagh has now directed and starred in three of these Agatha Christie films. He plays the silly, Belgian, genius, detective Hercule Poirot with just the right amount of seriousness, and sly style. Branagh never breaks the fourth wall but he’s not above winking at the camera once or twice.

The first two in Branagh’s series (Murder of the Orient Express and Death on the Nile) were straightforward murder mystery movies. This one brings in horror movie elements and far too many jump scares. 

Branagh’s style as a director is usually to fill the frame with lush city scapes and scenery. These things always look good in a way that is classic and formal. On the downside, the movies might actually be better if he broke a few rules. On the plus side they have the benefit of ignoring current trends. You could release these to the cinema at any time in the last 50 years and they would not feel out of place. 

I don’t know if that means they will stand the test of time but they will not embarrass their director or their actors 20 years from now. 

I figured out most of it before the end (not because the movie gave away a ton of clues but because if you have seen and read as much of this as I have you can generally know where it is going. There was at least one twist I missed though.

Regardless, you don’t go to these things for the murder mystery plots anyway. You go to marvel at Branagh’s mustache and watch the guest stars (Michelle Yeoh! Yellowstone’s Kelly Reilly! Tina Fey’s mouth scar!) ham it up. 

And you go because you know your 72-year-old mother will love it. The tickets and the popcorn were my birthday present to her.