Decent mystery from a great author played out by a skilled actor/director

Rating: 6/10 (27 November 2017)

Kenneth Branagh brings to life Agatha Christie's mystery novel and performs as the clever detective Hercule Poirot. The film begins with Hercule solving a mystery in Jerusalem with his amazing skills before he takes a ship to Istanbul on which he meets Miss Mary Debenham (Daisy Ridley) and Dr. Arbuthnot (Leslie Odom Jr.) who have a secret between them. He needs to return to London for a very important case and there is only one option, the Orient Express. Bouc (Tom Bateman) runs the train so he is able to arrange for Poirot to have a room. The detective is looking forward to a trip without any mysteries to solve so when Edward Ratchett (Johnny Depp) approaches him asking for help against a possible plot to kill him, Poirot refuses.
However, when Poirot awakes, they find Ratchett has been stabbed multiple times in his bed. The Orient Express has been stalled by an avalanche so Bouc is desperate to solve the case before the police arrive. Poirot agrees to take the case and begins to interrogate each of the passengers aboard the train and search Ratchett's compartment for clues. The biggest clue is a partially burned note that reveals a connection to the kidnapping of Daisy Armstrong. The film lost me a bit with this leap as Poirot is very familiar with the kidnapping and Ratchett is, in fact, the kidnapper John Cassetti. There was more than one victim as Daisy's mother died from a premature birth and her husband killed himself. The maid was accused and killed herself in police custody as the prosecutor's career was ruined by the false arrest.
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