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Agatha Christie?s Murder On The Orient Express
Alfred Molina, Meredith Baxter, Leslie Caron, Peter Strauss
Directed by Carl Schenkel
Made For TV 2001
VVS Films 2007
100 minutes

For me to enjoy a Hercule Poirot mystery or Agatha Christie adaptation takes some doing. I never did like the cozy. Murder On The Orient Express, the DVD mystery made for TV movie starring Alfred Molina as Poirot really did the trick. I have no idea what purists will think of this latest version of Murder On The Orient Express but I found it entertaining, well made, interestingly updated, and that is was a good mystery.

I like Alfred Molina as Poirot. He is far from Peter Ustinov's old guy characterization and I have never bothered checking out what David Suchet did with the part though I probably will now that I have finally found an Agatha Christie mystery on DVD that I actually enjoyed and did not find too long. In this version of Murder on the Orient Express there is a certain humanity to the detective I found lacking in other versions I have seen. Other versions, including Albert Finney's clock in at 2 hours or more

Molina is helped by a solid cast of supporting characters: Meredith Baxter plays a TV star and does it a bit over the top, Leslie Caron is the venerable old lady, Peter Strauss plays the guy who will become the corpse.

Of course, this being a cozy, everything takes place in a confined space and the reveal is done by the detective once he has assembled all the usual suspects in one room and tells the story of how the murder was committed. Poirot may not be my forte but this Murder On The Orient Express was good fun.