By Subhash K. Jha

Nov 25 (IANS): Film: "Murder on the Orient Express"; Director: Kenneth Branagh; Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Boynton, Manuel Garcia Rulfo, Sergei Polunin and Tom Bateman; Rating: **1/2

Unless, you are the bloke, who recently re-envisaged and ravaged "Ittefaq" beyond recognition, there is not much that one can do wrong with Agatha Christie. But then again there is only this much one can do with material so pitch-perfect and sacrosanct on paper, it defies revisionist interpretations.

Sure enough Kenneth Branagh has not tampered with Christie's tale at all. Branagh tells the murder mystery with such tender affection and keen fidelity that you can't help being disarmed by the sheer scrupulosity of the director's unquestioning vision.

This is Christie's dark and seductive world clogged with well-groomed, bewigged and charming characters who are prone to great heights of self-assertion including, if pushedA to a corner, murder.

Baranagh jampacks the luxury train with stars. Bollywood has ceased to produce multi-starrers now. But here is one from a British actor-director, who knows how to use major stars to pin down and position the Christie whodunit with panache, warmth and humour.

The cast was impressive, far more so than the rather sedate unquestioning treatment of the plot, which just goes from plot-point to plot-point without adding anything significant to the beloved novel.

Branagh as the pompous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot comes across as way too twinkle-eyed, almost laughing inwardly at Poirot's self-importance, but nonetheless imbuing a moral rectitude to the underhand proceedings on-board the train.

His final moral conflict is the narrative highlight. Branagh plays the finale with melodramatic majesty, asking the suspects to shoot him rather than allow him to lie.

Talking about the way Branagh uses the constrained spaces on the speeding train, the lay-out of the locomotive is admirable, as is the manner in which the characters move through the narrow spaces -- creating a kind of glamourous claustrophobia for themselves and fortunately, not for the audience.

The murder suspects are all impressively played, even when an actress of Dench's stature barely has four lines to speak. This must be one of Dench's poorest screen appearances.

Other stalwarts manage to shine even when not given much space to do so.

Hercule Poirot's legendary moustache, here played by Branagh, facial hair has a life of its own. The moustache is likely to be nominated for an Oscar of its own. Luckily for Christie's fans, much of the other factors in the whodunit blend into the fertile and furiously mysterious fabric of the plot without much ado.

There is a line in the film about a Black doctor, played by Leslie Odom Jr, where a character expresses fear that the colour of the doctor's skin would make him a prime crime suspect.

This chic but unremarkable adaptation of Christie's novels courts no controversies, disregards none of the rules of the traditional whodunit. It is as innocuous as murder can be when placed in the prism of the make-believe.