Death on the Nile (2022)
We open in the trenches of Belgium. World War I. 1914. The start of the war. As it turns out Hercule Poirot, before becoming a world-famous sleuth full of eccentricities and vagaries, was a young man, a humble farmer turned soldier on the Western Front. A soldier who has a captain -- and this captain, who will perish within the first five minutes, bears a dramatic mustache. Poirot ingeniously strategizes how they will take the bridge, and they do--but the Captain perishes. This death it seems is meant to account for the persona our detective comes to be known by -- elaborate coping mechanisms for a world where young men are sent to their certain death by leaders who will never know sacrifice; a world where ignorant armies clash by night; and a world where good men, who represent bravery and justice, die. Had this scene been the entire movie, we’d have little to complain about. We’d have a thought-provoking minor masterpiece. However, no, there is a bizarrely awful movie to follow.