Sleuth

YES, I know what you're thinking. A version of Sleuth - that creaky, cobwebby old two-hander - directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring, of all people, Jude bloody Law? Who'd want to watch that?

The notion of Michael Caine, who played the flash actor opposite Laurence Olivier's aging crime writer in the 1972 film of Anthony Schaffer's play, now taking on the senior role is an interesting one, but this really does sound like the unlovely manifestation of a terrible failure of imagination.

Well, to be fair to the film- makers, Branagh's picture ends up being one of the more fascinating farragoes of the season. Harold Pinter, who claims never to have seen the original, has taken his stiletto to the script and turned it into something considerably meaner and less comfy than the West End-friendly original.

The plot of the first act is, however, pretty much as before. Law's oily toad turns up at Caine's country mansion to reveal that he is sleeping with the older man's wife and to plead for a divorce (does family law still require this type of exchange?). Caine, though bitter, proposes a scheme that will please both parties, but it soon becomes apparent that he has mischief in mind.

In the second act things quickly turn bananas. The mystery plot withers away and the film is taken over by a kinky power game that recalls similar shenanigans in Pinter's classic script for Joseph Losey's The Servant.

The dialogue remains characteristic of its creator throughout. Cliched turns of phrase are purposefully repeated to emphasise their weirdness, and neither man will venture a platitude when a withering insult remains available. But the film doesn't quite come off.

Jude bloody Law has far too shallow a personality to convince as a Pinter anti-hero, and the revised plot loses its way somewhat in the final reel. A more surprising problem is the horrible set, which, counterproductively for such a talky piece, belongs behind the proscenium arch of a bad regional theatre.

Still, the picture deserves modest praise for bringing the most distinctive voice in post- war English drama back into the cinema. Pause.