Salt Lake Tribune Review
Michael Caine and
Jude Law have some marvelous scenery to chew in this update of the 1972 cat-and-mouse thriller. Caine (taking Laurence Olivier's role from the 1972 version) plays
Andrew Wyke, a mystery writer who has invited
Milo Tindle (Law, in the role Caine played before), an unemployed actor, to his ultramodern house for drinks and conversation - which turns to Wyke's wife, with whom Tindle is having an affair. The ensuing backbiting, one-upmanship and double dealing of the script (by Nobel laureate
Harold Pinter, adapting
Anthony Shaffer's play) start promising but soon go in circles. Director
Kenneth Branagh clearly is having fun navigating Tim Harvey's slick set design, but eventually the characters' deadly competitiveness becomes tedious.
-- Sean P. Means
Synopsis: The updated story of a wealthy writer of detective stories, and an aspiring yet out-of-work actor who is having an affair with the writer''s wife. The writer''s exquisitely modernized Georgian manor, becomes the backdrop for a cat and mouse game that pits one creative mind against another.
