LastingAware The greatest movie ever!

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Prismark10 Jacqueline De Bellefort introduces her fiance Simon Doyle to her friend, a wealthy heiress Linnet Ridgeway.A few months later Simon and Linnet are married and honeymooning in Egypt. Jacqueline stalks them, threatens them and Linnet ends up dead just after Jacqueline is seen shooting Simon on his leg.Poirot also happens to be on vacation. Although Jacqueline is the main suspect there are others in the trip that might have had a motive to kill Linnet, especially people who lost a fortune after the stock market crash.I have said in the past that the later Poirot's had decline in quality of the art production, it is very good here but the humour is still lacking. The biggest issue was that too many clues were laid which got my little grey cells ticking so I managed to work out parts of the plot before Poirot.It is an enjoyable enough mystery, it moves along at a fast pace but the characters did appear to be rather one dimensional.

grantss Hercule Poirot is on holiday in Egypt. Part of his travels includes a trip down the Nile on a passenger boat. On board are a mixed selection of characters. Most notable is a wealthy heiress, Linnet Ridgeway, and her husband, Simon Doyle. Also on board is the woman Mr Doyle left for Ms Ridgeway, Jacqueline De Bellefort. In revenge for Ms Ridgeway stealing the love of her life, Ms De Bellefort has been openly following Ms Ridgeway around and generally irritating her. One night, Ms De Bellefort, in a fit of anger and jealousy, shoots and wounds Mr Doyle. The next morning Ms Ridgeway is found murdered, shot through the head. However, the only two possible suspects - Ms De Bellefort and Mr Doyle - have perfect alibis and could not possibly have killed her. Who did then?Intriguing murder mystery, with a great twist. Not as good as the 1978 Peter Ustinov version - that had more atmosphere, better cinematography and generally was more entertaining - but the differences in quality are not large.Supporting cast includes Edward Fox, David Soul and Emily Blunt.

blanche-2 One of the best Christie books, "Death on the Nile" has again been made into a TV movie, this time with David Suchet as part of the Poirot series. Previously there was a 1978 version with Peter Ustinov. I'll admit that one was a lot more fun. Ustinov's Poirot was his own creation and fabulous, and that particular film had a fantastic cast including Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, David Niven, Maggie Smith, Mia Farrow, Olivia Hussey, Simon McCorkindale, Jack Warden, David Niven, and George Kennedy. Hello. Talk about star-studded.A couple of people on this site said the way this particular episode was set up, you knew who the culprit was immediately. Actually I found both versions easy to figure out.The story concerns a happy couple, Jacqueline de Belfort and Simon Doyle, whose relationship falls apart when Simon meets the wealthy, gorgeous Linnet Ridgeway, Jacqueline's soon-to-be-former friend. In the next scene, Linnet and Simon are married, and they're basically being stalked by Jacqueline, whose life's work is to drive both of them crazy and ruin everything they do.So it's no surprise when Jacqueline shows up on the couple's honeymoon cruise. Hercule Poirot and his friend, Colonel Race (Edward Fox) are also on the cruise. One night, Jacqueline has a fight with Simon and shoots him. Then Linnet is found dead, though Simon was only shot in the knee and survives. Jacqueline has made no secret of wanting Linnet dead, but she was busy shooting Simon. It's up to Poirot to sort out where everyone was and what everyone heard. Who killed Linnet? When another passenger is murdered, the situation becomes even more desperate. No dearth of suspects, including Andrew Pennington (David Soul) who has been using his position to mess with Linnet's money. We also have a thief on board, and Linnet's pearls are missing, as well as a blackmailer.It was mentioned on the reviews here that the actress playing Jacqueline seemed to be playing her as someone who was spiteful, rather than a woman in love. I think the spite/revenge is a good choice, having known a few scorned women in my life and having been one of them myself. One does harden, one does feel betrayed especially if your fiancé takes off with your best friend.Terrific story, still intriguing, with Suchet in top form, surrounded by a good cast. This is a dark episode. I know some people don't like the Ustinov TV adaptations, but I do. It's worth seeing just how the plot is handled, as well as being delightful.

El Cine Give these 2004 filmmakers credit. The 1978 version released to theaters, coming on the heels of the acclaimed 1974 feature film, is perhaps second to its predecessor in familiarity to the public for Hercule Poirot movies. With the film's fancy location shooting, another all-star guest cast, and the first of Peter Ustinov's portly performances as Poirot, some viewers might not have been interested in a remake.But this is a David Suchet series remake we're talking about -- and besides, the Ustinov version wasn't that good anyway. Actually, it was good for camp more than anything. You had (1) tacky violence (a stabbing from the book replaced with an on-screen throat-cutting); (2) Mia Farrow playing a woman whose jerk lover spurns her for another young woman, a role she'd play later in real life; (3) a cartoonish Egyptian official who is inexplicably mentioned as a suspect at the climax; and (4) the repeated device of Poirot magically appearing in scenes of private conversations, having eavesdropped on them. As I remember it, my favorite was when some suspects are talking secretively in the lounge, and Poirot suddenly pops up from behind the bar and makes a catty remark -- evidently he just happened to be inspecting the cleaning supplies under the counter or something when the characters walked in. But nothing beat (5) the Egyptian band whose stringed instruments somehow correspond to the brass on the audio.So we are fortunate that this Suchet version was made, and done so with high quality; it is one of A&E's better Poirot offerings. As usual, readers can consider the mystery and the neat floorplan of the boat more leisurely than filmviewers, especially with the running time kept to 97 minutes and a fast treatment of clues. But while I haven't read the text in years, I think this Suchet movie presents one of Agatha Christie's most famous and clever mysteries in an appealing way that is mostly respectful of the story.It doesn't take as many cheap paths as some episodes, though it does get tacky with a voyeuristic opening scene peering into Simon and Jacqueline's bedroom, and Dr. Bessner's bawdy talk about Egyptian gods. Salome Otterbourne's saltiness is accurate to the book, though.But there's quality in the impressive photography and location shooting, quite glamorous for a TV movie or series. Good use of artistic flashbacks, too. Series veteran Christopher Gunning composed the music; unfortunately like in other recent episodes it's mostly mellow and there's a mysterious lack of the old signature saxophone theme. In one misstep, the flashback to a stabbing occurs with the shrieking strings from "Psycho" in the background. Elsewhere, the period jazz tunes were a nice touch.The show maintains some humor, too -- such as Suchet dancing! The humor comes across well thanks to the able acting. Since it mostly consisted of young actors I'm not familiar with, lesser-known veterans, and the star of the 1970s show "Starsky and Hutch", I initially wasn't sure what to expect of the cast. What a great surprise then about how uniformly good everyone was.The casting and strong characterization of Tim Allerton was a delight. Daniel Lapaine's Tim is a mustachioed, messy-haired, pudgy twit whose mama's boy habits and occasional monacle-and-scarf getup make the contrast of his thievery gig all the more amusing and silly. How strange, then, that screenwriter Kevin Elyot changes his decision in the book to marry Rosalie Otterbourne, in one of Elyot's few major divergences from the original. Elyot has Tim show no interest in her after she kisses him, and he runs away to his mother. Too bad, since their union in the book was a poignant subplot.Ferguson's role has expanded, and Alastair Mackenzie expertly makes him both charming and offensive. At the end, I found myself hoping he'd mend his ways and find some future happiness. Daisy Donovan hits the right note as the awkward but kind Cornelia Robson, as do David Soul as the gruff, goateed, and golf-obsessed lawyer Andrew Pennington and Frances de la Tour as the loopy Salome (interestingly, she reminded me of Diana Rigg).Emma Malin is just like how I pictured Jacqueline De Bellefort while reading, except I thought Jackie was an American Southerner in the book. Here, she's played as a Brit. Having a Southern-accented character would have been appealing, and a rare opportunity for the series.After I saw this show I learned that Mrs. Van Schuyler was played by Judy Parfitt, whom I saw in some Avengers episodes and in an intense performance as the icy Vera Donavan in "Dolores Claiborne". As in those shows, Parfitt does well here.As Colonel Race, James Fox doesn't have much to do, but he does it well, e.g. his facial expressions of mock sympathy when he tries to act diplomatically with Van Schuyler and her haughty complaints about the ruining of a scarf that some Count gave her. His entrance, in which he dismounts from a camel and whips off his riding robe to reveal a prim double-breasted suit, is classic.This version has an interesting interpretation of Rosalie emphasizing her hardness, which wasn't so in the book I think and not in Olivia Hussey's shy rose portrayal in 1978. Also, whereas Maggie Smith played a masculine Nurse Bowers in that one, here Rosalie is the butch one.More flawed was the way Bessner was written. His Teutonic mustache and shaved head were unique, but he was unusually peevish (especially with Race, whom he twice confronts nose-to-nose) and also lecherous. His marriage to Cornelia comes out of nowhere, but so it was in the book too.