Agatha and the Midnight Murders

Tom Dalton strikes again, giving us another installment of Agatha Christie, albeit another work of fiction.

First point, without there being an Agatha Christie scheduled for Christmas, it's a shame they didn't save this one up until the festive season, a miserable Wednesday night in October was bizarre scheduling, meaning this drama will perhaps go unnoticed.

In truth, I think it may have been a bit more enjoyable, had I been three sheets to the wind with Christmas port.

The story was a bit odd, but it was Agatha Christie herself who was so off, we've had two different interpretations of her previously, Marshall and Bradley, this time Helen Baxendale.

Baxendale is an excellent actress, and performs particularly well, it was a very good performance, the problem was more so the material she's working with, Christie was portrayed as a somewhat devious, conniving character, I'm not sure anyone believes that about her.

I'm glad they're still making them, I enjoyed the last two, this one is pretty good, I thought the first half was pretty poor, but the second half was much, much better.

If you can stick with it, the ending is rewarding, it's better with a second watch. 6/10.

If this wasn't badged as an Agatha Chistie, it still would be a rambling poorly acted mish mash. We were actually looking forward to the ad breaks. Plodding along with a scattering of swear words, 3rd rate jokes and violent deaths doesn't make an Agatha Christie murder 'mystery'.

Somehow I got a third of the way through this debacle of a movie before I realised I may totally lose the will to live if I watched a second more. Helen Baxendale, totally miscast, did the best she could with the abysmal script, but could do nothing to improve it. The rest of the characters did nothing but annoy, and the acting in general was amateurish. The supposed comic moments were unfunny and embarrassing and the suspense was conspicuous by its absence. The occasional bad language seemed way out of character and the actual story was about as interesting as fishing. I regret every second I wasted on this - even the time spent writing this frigging review! What a waste of effort. I have been generous giving it 2 stars. Watch this at your own peril.

This fictional story features real life authoress Agatha Christie caught up in another murder mystery. She, and a man she has hired as a driver/bodyguard, are in a London hotel where she is to sell the rights to her latest 'Poirot' story to a wealthy Chinese businessman. When the air raid siren is heard a police woman ushers them, and other guests into the building's cellar. Tensions rise when Agatha realises that somebody has stolen the manuscript of her new novel... that is the least of their worries though; soon a fight leaves one man dead and then another man dies... Agatha suspects foul play. If she is right one of the people in the cellar is a killer and nobody is being allowed to leave till the all clear sounds.

This, the third of Channel Five's films imagining Agatha Christie in a murder case, has a somewhat theatrical feel due to the limited locations. This isn't a problem as having a confined location gave the story a good sense of claustrophobia. The people stuck in the cellar were nicely varied, giving us an interesting group of suspects/potential victims. While it is mostly a drama there are humorous moments; I particularly liked difference between what the Chinese man said, in subtitles, and what his translator said he said. The cast does a solid job, notably Helen Baxendale, who has taken over the role of Agatha Christie. The resolution contained some decent twists and turns so only a few are likely to work everything out before the reveal but most are likely to work out some details. Overall a solid murder mystery that fans of the genre are likely to enjoy.

The opening credit/scene was so unnecessarily gruesome, I nearly turned it off right then and there. But I needn't have worried about that...it had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie. I can't imagine what they were thinking it achieved.

Mind due, if I had turned it off I might have saved myself a few hours of watching mediocre nonsense.

It had the standard formula for a Christie, but that's where the similarities ended. There was very little in the way of mystery, clues or detection and rather just sudden murders, finger pointing and an ongoing manhunt.

I didn't mind some of it, but it the twists were a bit wild.