Daniel Craig left one franchise with Bond, and has now become entrenched in another in the role of Poirotesque detective Benoit Blanc, this time taking on the case of the murder of a fire-and-brimstone preacher at a New England smalltown church. Naturally the puzzle doesn't prove as straightforward to solve as it first appears, and the initial suspect, Judd, an dealistic young priest who just arrived at the church and found hmself immediately at loggerheads with his hate-filled predecessor, can be dismissed from the list of suspects without too much analysis. Less so when it comes to the congregation, all of whom, in typical Agatha Christie style (director Johnson always explicitly acknowledges the debt to her stories) have clouded motives.
It's a lot do do with the conflict between the importance of religious faith and logic, embodied by Judd and Blanc, and the exchanges between them are really the most interesting element of an overlong film. There are some inconsistencies in the plot which really should have been avoided, especially given the genre, but at least Craig in particular is clearly having fun, and so you can expect a fourth instalment to get the green light posthaste.
6/10
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