TF.ORG - The Films - movies download portal

Sleuth is a 2007 film directed by Kenneth Branagh based on 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature Harold Pinter’s screenplay adaptation of the Tony Award-winning play Sleuth, by Anthony Shaffer. It was produced by Jude Law, who also stars in it as Milo Tindle opposite Michael Caine as Andrew Wyke, who performed as Tindle opposite Laurence Olivier as Wyke in the original 1972 film Sleuth. Though the new film adaptation is termed a "remake", Pinter, Branagh, Law, and Caine and reviewers emphasize that Pinter’s "take" on the play differs almost entirely from the original play and film, which he had not seen prior to writing his screenplay.


According to most accounts, this is a remake of the 1972 film, but Pinter’s screenplay offers "a fresh take" on Shaffer’s play and "a very different form" from the original film.In his review of the film’s debut at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, Morris observes: "The reworking of the play is not just an adept transformation of theater to film ... but also casts a revealing light on social history, reflecting the enormous changes in English society, language and morals in the nearly 40 years since the play first appeared on the London stage."

Caine played the role of Milo Tindle in the original film. In the 2007 film, Caine performs the role of Andrew Wyke, originated by Laurence Olivier, and Law performs Caine’s original role of Milo Tindle. This is the second film in which Law performs a role originated by Caine (The first was the title role in Alfie).

Pinter, the actors, and the director say this version of Sleuth is not strictly a "remake." Law has called it "a completely reinvented Sleuth" ... It didn’t feel like a remake. I always loved the idea at its heart of two men battling it out for a woman you never meet....’" Law further felt that, "I was creating a character [Milo Tindle], I wasn’t recreating one.’" Caine said, "I never felt that I had gone back to Sleuth", and called the Pinter script "an entirely different thing. There isn’t a single line in it that was in the other one, and Pinter had never seen the [1972] movie. Jude [Law] gave him the stage play and said, ’Write a screenplay for me’ ... It was a completely different experience’". In a television interview conducted on RAI TV during the Venice International Film Festival, Caine states: "If the script hadn’t been by Harold Pinter, I wouldn’t have done the movie".

Pinter said, "’It’s a totally new take. ... I had not either seen or read the play, and I hadn’t seen the film adapted from the play either, so I knew nothing about it. So I simply read the play and I think it’s totally transformed. I’ve kept one or two plot things because you have to but apart from that, I think I’ve made it my own.