La reine du crime présente: les meurtres de minuit

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'.

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.

Weak and lacking any real punch. A collection of highly unlikely characters brought together in a highly contrived situation with a rather daft storyline and mediocre script. The claustrophobic atmosphere did add a degree of tension but overall there was little in the way of real suspense, just dead bodies everywhere.

The characters were paper-thin and demanded little attention although the performances of Helen Baxendale, Blake Harrison and Jodie McNee were fair enough; the rest had little more than walk-on parts and were eminently forgettable. I watched it without enthusiasm and consider it time not well spent.

The best I can offer is 5 out of 10, mainly for the central performances, and that's being generous.

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.

In an earlier review, djalloyingj-7365929 August 2021 asks how a film set in 1940 can have a rude song about Hitler's balls set to "The Bridge on the River Kwai" march theme, when "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was made many years after 1940 and the end of World War II. What djalloyingj-7365929 does not realise is that the march theme used in "The Bridge on the River Kwai" is actually a much earlier military march, written by a British counterpart to America's military march king, John Philip Sousa. The original march is called "Colonel Bogey", and a little web-searching can add much detail to this, although "Colonel Bogey" seems to be a fictitious character. The naughty words, very popular with the British army, and naughty little boys, tell us that "Hitler had only one brass ball, Goering had two, but very small, Himmler was somewhat sim'lar, but poor old Goebels had no balls at all!" This may not have been historically correct, but was very satisfying to sing very loudly. The idea that Agatha Christie, in real life, might find herself in a real murder scene, and be able to use her fictionally honed mystery-solving skills to solve the mystery is sufficient to motivate "Agatha and the Midnight Murders", and other (fictional) murder mysteries that do not involve Christie's usual sleuths, such as Poirot and Marple.