Movie reviews: As a thriller, 'A Haunting in Venice' as lifeless as one of the movie's murder victims

'Wicked': 4 out of 5 stars Film critic Richard Crouse shares his take on newly-released movies including 'Wicked', 'Gladiator II' and more.

A HAUNTING IN VENICE: 2 ½ STARS

After a short break caused by COVID, Kenneth Branagh’s handsome Agatha Christie adaptations, “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Death on the Nile” and now “A Haunting in Venice,” have become an annual tradition. Like fruit cake at Christmas, or those Halloween Molasses Kisses that stick to everything they come into contact with, the movies are a sweet treat, but are quickly forgotten.

Branagh returns as both director and elaborately mustachioed detective Hercule Poirot. When we first see the world’s best, and most famous sleuth, he is in self-exile in Venice, living alone with only his bodyguard (Riccardo Scamarcio) for company and as protection from the crime groupies that pester him when he leaves the house.

He is burned out, tired of staring into the abyss of the worst of human behavior. Instead, he passes his time ensconced on his rooftop patio, enjoying the sun and the best pastries Venice has to offer.

His idyll is interrupted when an old friend, possibly his only friend, Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) drops by. She is the author of a string of detective novels based on Poirot’s exploits, and has a case she thinks will lure him out of retirement.

She convinces him to attend a Halloween night seance at the allegedly haunted palazzo of Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly), a mother grieving the tragic death of her daughter Alicia. The detective, a man of science, is skeptical, but agrees to attend, if only to expose the proceedings as fakery.

When people start dying, Poirot’s instincts kick in as he sorts through the red herrings, ghostly happenings and the backgrounds of each guest, including the pious housekeeper Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), the shell-shocked Dr. Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan) and his precocious son Leopold (Jude Hill), and psychic medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), to get to the bottom of the case. “There have been two impossible murders,” he says, “as if the living have been killed by the dead. No one shall leave this place until I know who did it.”

“A Haunting in Venice” is the most gothic of Branagh’s Christie adaptations. Tilted camera angles and extreme close-ups lend a claustrophobic, and welcome weird vibe to the murder mystery. Add to that some jump scares and hallucinogenic imagery, and you get the jitteriest of Branagh’s Christie films. The rest of it, from the stunt casting to the big reveal at the end, feel more familiar, like ghostly spectres left over from the other films.

Branagh directs and performs with vigor, but the mechanics of the investigation sap much of the film’s energy and tension. Despite good performances— Cottin and Yeoh are standouts—the talky nature of Poirot’s interrogations, even when broken up by slick editing and inventive photography, slow the movie’s pace to a crawl.

Worse, the cross examinations don’t reveal much in the way of usable clues for the audience. One of the treats of a murder mystery as a viewer is the opportunity to follow along, to arrive at a conclusion based on the information provided. “A Haunting in Venice” cobbles together a series of clues, obvious only to Poirot and screenwriter Michael Green. It feels like a cheat when the great detective reveals an arcane fact not even hinted at in the narrative.

“A Haunting in Venice” is a beautiful-looking film, with exquisite, gothic production design and some fun performances, but as a thriller, it feels as lifeless as one of the movie’s murder victims.

THE RETIREMENT PLAN: 3 STARS

Nicolas Cage caps off a busy 2023 with “The Retirement Plan,” an unusual family dramedy that marks his fifth foray into theatres since New Year’s Day.

He plays Matt, a retired older guy, content with the life of a beach bum after a life of “government work.”

He was, he says, an arbitrator, someone who settled disputes and “gets the job done.” He was also a crappy father to Ashley (Ashley Greene), the daughter he left behind when he abandoned her and her sick mother years ago.

“If she wants to visualize me as dead, she has every right,” he says.

When Ashley and husband Jimmy (Jordan Johnson-Hinds) steal a hard drive from ruthless crime boss Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley) and his Shakespeare-loving henchman Bobo (Ron Perlman), the baddies will do almost anything to get it back, including taking her young daughter Sarah (Thalia Campbell).

Caught up in a web of trouble, Sarah reaches put to dear old dad, unaware of his violent past. As he assesses the situation, his instincts kick in as he levels the playing field.

“Here’s the thing boss,” says Bobo to Donnie, “the old guy keeps killing everybody. Everybody!”

“The Retirement Plan” owes a debt to Guy Ritchie. It doesn’t have the snap, crackle and pop of Ritchie’s early films, like “Snatch” or “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” but stylistically its mix of violence and comedy plays like Ritchie Lite.

Cage hands in a charming, off-the-wall take on Matt, possibly the goofiest and most casual assassin we’ve seen on screen since “The Hitman’s Bodyguard.” He’s deadly, an unapologetic oddball, and more than just a bit silly, but it is Cage’s performance that breathes life into the desiccated one-last-job/bad father-with-a-violent-past genres. He’s letting his freak flag fly, having fun, and it shows.

“The Retirement Plan” isn’t a great movie, even by the standards of Cage’s choppy resume, but it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and neither should you.

EL CONDE: 3 ½ STARS

Based on Chile’s former authoritarian leader Augusto Pinochet, “El Conde,” now streaming on Netflix, is a satire that reimagines the president and dictator (and other politicians) as a soulless vampire. Metaphorically, the idea of politicians as bloodsucking leeches is not new, but this movie isn’t allegorical. It’s an ambitious vampire movie first and an alternate history political satire second.

Jaime Vadell plays the Count, a 250-year-old vampire, living in self-imposed exile in a crumbling mansion/bunker in remote Chile, with his wife, Lucia (Gloria Münchmeyer), and loyal and an attentive butler (Alfredo Castro). Since getting his first taste of blood licking Marie Antoinette’s plasma off the blade of a guillotine during the French Revolution, he’s been a power-hungry tyrant, most recently taking control of Chile until his “death” in 1990.

Hidden from view for decades, surviving on human heart smoothies he whips up in a blender, he is now in the throes of an existential crisis, troubled by what he perceives as the injustices of his legacy and the ennui of eternal life. “Some people live longer than they should,” he says.

Dispirited, he’s given up drinking blood, and is wasting away, but just as his immortality appears to be finding an end point, some unwelcome visitors—his five inheritance hungry children and a young nun (Paula Luchsinger) with exorcism on her mind—give the undead monster a reason to live.

Shooting in luscious, gothic black and white, Chilean director Pablo Larraín and cinematographer Ed Lachman recall F. W. Murnau and the Expressionist films of the 1920s and 30s. But just as the movie subverts what a political satire can be, the look of the movie also throws expectations off-kilter. The stately black and white suggests classic horror but the film’s grimly funny and witty script is closer on the laugh-a-minute meter to “Young Frankenstein” than “Dracula.” It’s not exactly a giggle fest, it is, after all, about the existence and persistence of evil, but it does trade in dark comedy in a way that Tod Browning never could have imagined.

The vampire allegory—that Pinochet is a parasite who sucked the life blood of his people—isn’t the most subtle, but it does have bite, sinking its teeth into the legacy of a monster.

Although “El Conde” veers off track near the mid-section, the sheer audacity of the idea and a third act reveal gets it back on track. It’s the most original vampire film to come along in years and one of the best sociopolitical satires this side of Armando Iannucci.