Sleuth - A Comparison

5 Stars (1972) and 4 Stars (2007)

Sleuth is the name of two films, both starring Michael Caine, one from 1972 and one from 2007. The original stars Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine and the remake stars Michael Caine and Jude Law. The Story of both films is fairly simple, Andrew Wyke (Olivier, then Caine) has learned that Milo Tindle (Caine then Law) wants to marry his wife. As such he invites him to his country home so they can enact a robbery of Wyke's jewels so that Tindle has the money from the jewels and Wyke has the money from the insurance, and all soon devolves into a series of vicious mind games between the two.

Laurence Olivier is a far better Wyke than Michael Caine, both play the part very well, but Olivier's character is more defined, they establish his love of games early on and it is what fuels the film, whereas Michael Caine gets no evident passion for the mind games, so when they start it feels almost out of character.

Also Caine is a far better Tindle than Jude Law, again both are wonderful actors who play their parts very well, but Caine's Tindle seems more intelligent, you can more believe him matching wits with Wyke, also his idea of mind games is far more perverse and dark hearted than Law's, though that is down to writing not acting. however Law's Inspector Black is a bit more believably different than Caine's Inspector Doppler, but that is mostly down to make up effects.

The writing of both is good, but Anthony Schaffer came up with the play so naturally his screenplay is the superior one, that said the remake has the clever wordplay and energetic back and forth of Harold Pinter writing it. However the story works better in the original, mainly for the games being more established, the humiliation of Tindle being far more complete and the mind games being more exciting.

The new film puts a lot of focus on spectacle, the design of the building is made to be eye catching, and this subtracts somewhat from the charm the original had, where the only thing to really focus on was the performances as they were the focus, the remake seems often too concerned with making the set more interesting to look at than the actors.

The Winner

To sum up, the original Sleuth is fantastic, the remake is also very good, it just would have been a lot better if I hadn't already seen the original.