Albert Lieven (Zurta) and Jean Kent (Valya) pursue Alan Wheatley (Karl) aboard the Orient Express. The object of their attention is a diary which Lieven must recover and leave the train with before he reaches Trieste.
The film needed to go in either the comedy direction or the thriller direction. As it goes, it combines both which is frustrating. The final moments on the train are quite shocking given the rather lame humour which we have been fed during the previous hour and forty minutes. The ending seems out of place in this otherwise frothy adventure.
Most of the actors are irritating. They play comedy roles that never make you laugh, except once – lawyer Derek De Marney (George) comes out with a classic laugh-out-loud moment when he presents his 3 theories of how someone has ended up dead to policeman Paul Dupuis (Inspector Jolif). It's the best moment of the film and we re-winded it twice! The best in the cast are Lieven and Kent, who play it straight and provide the thriller part to the film – the reason to watch it. Some characters are actually completely superfluous to the story – the bird watcher, the GI, the French cook and the British cook. There are too many characters providing comedy parts.
As a whole, you watch to see what happens but it gets boring and the Brits speak in that ridiculous posh way that makes you cringe, and it basically helps to portray them as twerps. Not what is required for a good thriller.
The film needed to go in either the comedy direction or the thriller direction. As it goes, it combines both which is frustrating. The final moments on the train are quite shocking given the rather lame humour which we have been fed during the previous hour and forty minutes. The ending seems out of place in this otherwise frothy adventure.
Most of the actors are irritating. They play comedy roles that never make you laugh, except once – lawyer Derek De Marney (George) comes out with a classic laugh-out-loud moment when he presents his 3 theories of how someone has ended up dead to policeman Paul Dupuis (Inspector Jolif). It's the best moment of the film and we re-winded it twice! The best in the cast are Lieven and Kent, who play it straight and provide the thriller part to the film – the reason to watch it. Some characters are actually completely superfluous to the story – the bird watcher, the GI, the French cook and the British cook. There are too many characters providing comedy parts.
As a whole, you watch to see what happens but it gets boring and the Brits speak in that ridiculous posh way that makes you cringe, and it basically helps to portray them as twerps. Not what is required for a good thriller.