Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (2013)

Redundant and unnecessary.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

David Suchet's wish to film all the Poirot stories come to fruition in this final tale written by Agatha Christie where Poirot is now old, ill and knocking on death's door.The setting of the television adaptations has always been the 1930s but here we jump forward to the late 1940s and the post world war 2 setting.Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser) returns to see his old friend and also his daughter staying in Styles once a grand family house now a hotel. This was also the setting for a murder that Hastings and Poirot once investigated.The look of the film is that of a melancholy gloom, we know that Poirot is reaching the end of the road. In recent television adventures we see Poirot being a pious Catholic and rather absolute that murder is wrong.This has been leading up to something that the producers and even Suchet decided to devise a route map knowing the contents of the final story.Dead bodies turn up, people attempt to kill, even Hastings nearly succumbs to murder given how much he detests his daughter's latest flame. Yet Poirot realises that there is an Iago like person who is pulling the strings and has pulled them before, enough to send someone over the edge while they act all innocent.Poirot uses his little grey cells to lure this person into a trap, a culprit who actually has never killed anyone yet Poirot thinks is dangerous enough that he would contemplate his own eternal soul to be damned.The feature length films lacked the leanness, exquisiteness, humour and stylish look of the hour long adaptations. They only tended hang together in the final reveal of the murderer and how it was all done as in here. Until then the film felt a little disjointed and gloomy.Still it serves as a nice swansong with Suchet leaving a strong mark in his interpretation of Poirot.

The production is as great as it has always been. I also liked the portrayal of the tattered house and the dark scenes, in line with bad health of Poirot. My complaint is that the way Poirot committed his own murder was not nearly half as smart as the murderers Poirot caught, even worse it was not plausible; even if we accept that Poirot would indeed commit such a crime. Of course, there is nothing the production team could do about it, if they were not to grossly deviate from the source. I suppose, Christie was really bored of Poirot and could not think of a better way of getting rid of him. A disappointment overall, but not because of the team that produced the episode.

I feel so disappointed with Poirot being a murderer that I cannot aprove this episode. Jamais, mes amis, would Poirot take justice into his hands. I do not find this to be according to his character. And he commits suicide after? But then I realized it was Agatha Christie's decision. And has the story sinks in - I just saw it for the 1st time - I start to gradually be more acceptable towards it all. A killer that never actually kills but is most deadly effective... Police could not legally have done a thing to stop him.Yet, Poirot's little gray cells should have provide him with much better ways to have the evil man rightfully punished without resourcing himself to murder! A DUEL OF MINDS... Poirot could have led the other into an act his true character would be exposed or play with him until he harms no one but himself. That way the death would be by the killer's won hands, not by Poirot's! But that was not Agatha's choice. Being able to write this much adventures for one character must have been very challenging. It was time to Poirot to retire... in a big Bang.I guess that is exactly what happen.Production wise, this episode is as perfect has every previous one. This is one of the most agreeable detective period series ever being made. Lovable scenery, wardrobe, locations, colors, traditions reconstitution... There's a delightful parallel were the audience finds a very old Poirot in a wheelchair, not able to walk and very sick. But the mansion he gets in is has bad has he is. The settings are according to the end of it all. Winter time, rain, huge old mansion, greyish, empty, decrepit... Beauty has seen better days around there. Yet somehow that place still has the ability to take your breath away. You start to wonder what to be that old must be like. To the little gray cells...And that is why I conclude Poirot becoming a murderer just maybe justifiable. That much older and sick I do not know what it feels like. Maybe its plausible. A big part of me still finds it out of character and I'm guessing a religious person has he was would not enjoy opening the way to the «other side» with a fresh murder followed by his own suicide.Plot wise, Agatha's story feels less real because it seems to me people would not be so naive towards such manipulation of their minds, since some where quite suspicious. The way old Poirot ends up drugging a person is also very easy. I was enjoying watching Poirot again.

I really don't like to admit this, but CURTAIN has to be one of the weakest entries in the entire Poirot canon. Hettie Macdonald's production sets up an intriguing situation, but the resolution is weak in the extreme, with the surprise plot-twist involving Poirot himself seeming particularly implausible. I realize that this is probably in the source-text, and that screenwriter Kevin Elyot was trying to make the best of a weakly plotted book, but for me the episode simply did not work in televisual terms. On the other hand there were incidental pleasures; it was nice to see Hugh Fraser returning as Hastings, the eternal innocent unable to see what was distinctly in front of him, supported by a clutch of memorable cameos from Aidan McArdle, Helen Baxendale and Anne Reid as a particularly sour-faced old woman. The lighting was appropriately shadowy, making every character in the episode seem suspicious. Towering above everything was David Suchet's masterly performance as Poirot - as the detective taking his last bow on the stage, he was both clear-eyed yet moving as he realized that he no longer possessed the physical capacities to solve any more cases. He has been easily one of the best - if not the best - Christie characterization in any media adaptation of her work.