Murder On the Orient Express (1974 film)

A train leaves a station, there’s a murder, a bunch of actors your parents recognize talk for an hour, Poirot explains the plot for half an hour, then the credits roll. It’s not the easiest sell, and this is not Lumet at his best, but Express delivers where it has to, with that climactic half-hour doing a lot to make up for the basically-fine film around it even as it is weaving an unsettling and tragic tale as told by a silly man whose name is unpronounceable by everyone else. Lumet’s fifth-best film, depending on how you feel about Serpico.

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