Who is your favourite Hercule Poirot? Agatha Christie’s detective is egotistical and effervescent and enthusiastic. The actor who plays him must be able to portray authority and use “the little grey cells” of the brain to outfox both the perpetrator and the (usually hapless) local police. The tried-and-tested formula is a murder (or two or three) in an exotic location plus a clutch of motivated suspects plus a final denouement—big revelation—with M. Poirot centre stage. “Death on the Nile,” which is without question the best of these mysteries, will likely be shown on television one afternoon late in December; some of the ideas in the new film overlap with Agatha Christie’s pièce de résistance, and it also shares a sense of a holiday afternoon flopped on the sofa.
Usually the question of favourite actor is applied to an even more famous fictional character played over the years by more than one man: James Bond. Daniel Craig, the most recent—and for one reason or another the best Bond for many—completely dominates the rest of the cast in his role as Benoit Blanc, a modern-day Poirot, in the “Knives Out” murder-mystery series, the latest instalment of which, “Wake Up Dead Man” (Netflix—“the idiot versions of us will end up on Netflix”) is showing now at the Montrose Playhouse. M. Poirot sounds French but is actually Belgian and played by a British actor; M. Blanc, whose name sounds French but whose accent sounds American, is also played by a British actor.
When a junior Catholic priest, Father Jud, played by Josh O’Connor, who describes himself as “young, dumb and full of Christ”—a play on a notorious quote from “Point Break” (1991)—punches a fellow cleric, his superiors dispatch him to the deliciously named Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude church as assistant to a troublemaker, Reverend (“Monsignor”) Wicks. Rev Wicks is not supportive, “You here to take my church away from me?” he snarls. Later, he reinforces his own unchallengeable position, “Welcome to ‘my’ church,” he says, pompously. The Monsignor is murdered and the inner circle of his congregation, six parishioners, plus, of course, Father (“Judas”) Jud are in the frame. “These will be our suspects,” Jud says, off-camera, “so I better introduce them.” The best of these characters is played by Glenn Close, who relishes every single syllable of her role. “In a demonic rage she defiled this holy place,” she says (about a woman who appears in flashbacks), going absolutely berserk. “Blasphemy! Desecration! Evil incarnate!” (The film is not light on hyperbole). “‘Brain aneurysm,’ they said. ‘Struck down!’ I say.” And Ms Close spends a great deal of the film on her knees praying or whispering mantras. The charismatic private detective Benoit Blanc arrives, brushing the local police chief aside and taking charge of the investigation to find the murderer.
“Wake up Dead Man” shares with “Death on the Nile” (the Peter Ustinov version of 1978) a star-studded cast. But the new film doesn’t create as much richness in their roles. Take Kerry Washington, an exceptionally talented actor, who is vested with a completely muddled part and marooned on the sidelines for most of the film. “I’ve given up a lot to be loyal,” she says at one point (why?) “God…is very pleased with me. So I guess that’s nice.” Meanwhile back in the church, the Monsignor’s vitriolic sermons are nasty: “Might as well beat that child,” he rales during one. “What he’s pushing for every time is a walkout,” explains Jud, and that’s usually what happens when new worshippers turn up on a Sunday morning. Not long after he arrives in the parish, Jud convenes a clandestine prayer meeting to try to behave more like a conventional shepherd to his flock; but he has woefully underestimated the congregation’s fidelity to the Monsignor—whom they text before Jud can even begin. “What the holy heck,” he texts back immediately. The six swiftly leave—“I’m so sorry your little coup failed this afternoon,” one says on the way out.
Much of the film’s action takes place in the church but there are several double confessions between the two priests shot on a bench in the graveyard. Each priest takes the confession of the other; these disclosures are embarrassing and inappropriate and explicit. But once the formal part is out of the way, the two vent their real feelings for each other: “[You are] intentionally keeping them angry and afraid,” Jud charges Wicks, referring to the six congregants.
“If you’d like to confess to anything,” Benoit says, launching the denouement, the best scene of the film, “this seems like a pretty good place to do it.” Capturing his suspects’ attention by playing a few bars from “Phantom of the Opera” on the church organ, Benoit bellows from the pulpit—in the same style as Monsignor Wicks—then opines from a presumptuous position in front of the altar, then challenges with a sense of self-satisfaction while lounging on the chancel steps, then toys with the cast while strutting down the nave away from the altar, dressed in his three-piece suit, tie stud, French cuffs and long, tapered blue collars (and Columbo mackintosh). “Can’t you just give us the answer,” he is asked, frustratedly. “Isn’t that what all of this is for?”
In “Death in the Nile” Hercule Poirot launches into his chain of ferocious, domineering interrogations of the steamboat suspects in a particularly memorable way. Lulling them into a false sense of security by agreeing with their observations that a suspect—who is not present—could not have “done it,” he continues, “But you could.” “Wake up Dead Man” does away with the one-by-one interrogation; as such it can be hard to grasp what the motive for the murder in each case might be. And clowning the film for an audience of nonbelievers, with rather predictable anti-Catholic attack lines, risks offending those who take solace in the Christian faith.
Watching Mr Craig made me think about his five excellent Bond movies; the way in which he overshadows his experienced co-stars in the current film is a testament to his powerful on-screen presence. The filmmakers have been paying close attention to their studies at the University of Agatha Christie, “A textbook example of a perfectly impossible case,” Benoit says. “Here it is: the holy grail. This is practically a syllabus for how to compose this crime.”
Adam Poole
28th November 2025
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