Review: A Prolonged and Painful Death on the Nile

Image Courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Roger Ebert

By Dean Robbins

Death on the Nile (2022) was filmed almost three years ago in 2019. Not only has a plague spread across the world in the years since its production,  but some of the film’s cast have also landed themselves in controversy. Armie Hammer, who plays the newlywed Simon Doyle to Gal Gadot’s multi-millionaire Linnet Ridgeway, is allegedly into cannibalism and is being investigated for a possible sexual assault case. Additionally, Gadot herself is disliked by some viewers for her Israeli Defense Force background. Letitia Wright, who plays the daughter Rosalie of fictional singer Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo), made headlines for allegedly being against the COVID-19 vaccine on the set of Black Panther 2, which she has denied. Russell Brand, who plays doctor and Linnet’s ex Linus Windlesham, has garnered both fans and haters from his right-leaning political commentary YouTube channel. Kenneth Branagh, who functioned as the film’s director and as the actor who played the protagonist, detective Hercule Poirot, is responsible for making Belfast, a film that myself and some other critics have found to be not only poor in execution but an insensitive treatment of its contentious subject matter. All is to say that the road to this film’s release has been as long as the titular river itself. Unfortunately, that road is a whole lot more interesting than the film.

Part of what made Branagh’s first adaptation of a Poirot mystery novel by Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express (2017), so fun was that it felt like the perfect mix of classic Hollywood magic and modern movie wizardry. The wintry visuals were enchanting, and the mystery was enthralling. Death on the Nile, unfortunately, has neither classic charm nor techno bravado. The mystery is fine, but it has already been adapted for the stage, television, radio, and film. In the film, Doyle and Ridgeway have hired detective Poirot to watch over their wedding as Doyle deals with a crazed, jilted ex (Emma Mackey) and a variety of greedy friends. At the end of the day, though, the mystery is original author Agatha Christie’s work, not screenwriter Michael Green’s. 

The mystery story does falter occasionally. The cast fails to get the viewer to care about the wedding or the drama surrounding it, outside of an incredible performance by Emma Mackey, who is definitely going places after this film. Gal Gadot is not a good actress, which is currently a controversial opinion but will not be for long. Her line readings range from just passable to comically bad and she seems disconnected from the rest of the cast. Most of the cast only embody the character traits and undergo development as is necessary to facilitate the mystery. Rose Leslie and Annette Benning are the worst perpetrators of this. Other characters, like singer Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo) and her daughter Rosalie (Letitia Wright), feel out of place in the drama. Finally, Poirot himself is comical, including in a surreally awful black-and-white prologue. Although this could be ignored if the film at least worked as escapism, it fails in that regard, too. 
There is something absurd about a $90 million mystery film that takes place almost entirely on a boat. It is even more absurd that it looks like a direct-to-DVD movie. 20th Century had apparently planned on filming on location in Egypt before compromising with Morocco only to end up shooting the whole movie in England. The film is filled with green screen scenes and poor CGI. A scene with Poirot and his friend Bouc (Tom Bateman) at the pyramids is a lowlight. The characters look like they are in a cheap ripoff of Disney’s Stagecraft (set + LED screens + CG) technology. The film regularly looks fake and not in a cozy, aesthetically pleasing way like Murder on the Orient Express. It just looks…ugly. Imagine the experience of watching this film: a decent mystery covered in a rotten stew of uneven acting where everyone looks digitally composited into their scenes. Miserable! Absolutely miserable! By the time the credits rolled, it turned out that the real Death on the Nile was of my patience.