Product: SLEUTH - (Russian Import - PAL DVD) (1972)
Rating: 5.0
Only a Game
The title of this movie has always seemed to compleatly fail to capture the spirit of this film. I've always thought the movie should be called 'Only A Game'. Sleuth sounds like some standard detectives fair and this is not standard. The movie is a game and it is about games and Anthony Shaffer is playing a game with the audiance.It is hard to describe the film without giving away a twist or turn but the begining is fairly safe. Milo Tindel (Michael Caine) is invited to the country manner of Alaxander Wake (Laurance Olivier). Wake is a rather bizarre eccentric obsessed with games, the gentry, and his own unaturaly large ego. Tindel is almost his poler opposite. Tindel came from a poor background and was the son of an impoverished Itlalian watch maker. Wake who seems to have had the world handed to him on a aristocratic plate were as Tindel is a struggling self made bussness man.Wake announces to Tindel three things: he knows Tindel is having an affair with his wife, he doesn't care, and he's willing to help Tindel commit insurance fraud if he'll just take Margarite off his hand. The film then decends into a series of twits and turns which I will not metion.The back bone of this film is the actors. Both Caine and Olivier were nomanated for the oscar that year and they both deserved the nomination. They make all the fantastical games playing seem real and add energy to the story (which play adaptations usualy are lacking). Their perfect for their roles in this intricate game of class war fare.This is one of the best