The Clocks (2011)

There are two plots into one here, plenty of coincidences and a lot of red herrings offered here as well. At least there is enough plot to justify the longer running time which I felt was not always the case with the longer Poirot stories.Lt Colin Race is investigating a spy ring when he finds a distraught young woman who has come across a stabbed man in the home of a blind lady, a home with lots of clocks showing the wrong time.Lt Race's father was an acquaintance of Poirot and he asks for his help and Poirot comes down to Dover to investigate with Inspector Hardcastle who is a little out of his depth. The young woman worked for a company providing secretarial services. The Crescent where the dead body was found contains a host of colourful but slightly sinister characters.It is nicely shot and for the later Poirot adaptations it contains more humour.

Pursuit of a spy ring brings Lt. Colin Race comes to Wilbraham Crescent, where he happens upon a woman fleeing in terror from a house containing the blind owner, and a dead man. The house contains clocks all stopped at the wrong time – which the owner insists are not hers, and nobody seems to know who the dead man is. The police get involved in the shape of Inspector Hardcastle, but so too does Race's family friend of Hercule Poirot. The potential for witnesses to the crime in the small contained Crescent, means a door to door investigation, during which time the many odd characters are revealed – but what does it all mean? Does it link to the suspected spy ring? What do the clocks mean? And where did one of them go? And was it really Mr Tinkles who wee'd on the sofa? Poirot investigates.The play that this film opens with is noted for containing many red herrings (or whatever it is called in Finnish); I thought this was maybe a reference to such a scene in Appointment with Death, but the author Ariadne Oliver was not in that story. Anyway, what this reference does link to is the rest of this film, because it is noteworthy for how convoluted it is, but yet how (comparatively) simple the actual solution is. Indeed my own experience with it rather fits with this since I spent most of the film trying to align the many, many moving parts and red herrings, but yet at the same time I always suspected Martindale on the simple basis that she was the gate- keeper to one of the key events that put Webb into the house at the right time (the supposed phone call requesting her services); so all at once I had one of the perps but yet nothing by fog as to how it all would work out.There is a certain amount of pleasure in this mess of clues and irrelevant detail, and it helps that the residents of the Crescent are colourful – it is nice to have some comedic touches back in the film after the rather more brooding Orient Express. However, at the same time it is difficult to fight your way through any of it since there is a lot going on. This limited how engaged I was in the mystery, even though I was still interested enough to keep up and keep fighting to put things into the right slots. The colourful characters are ell delivered by the colourful cast, with Sharp, Winstone, Massey, Wicks and others all do good work, with plenty of energy and intrigue; special mention to Edney's cat woman for comedy effect. The period delivery continues to work, although it does not feel as precise and focused on period detail as maybe it once did, but it is broader and more sweeping in scale than the original episodes. Suchet is on good form and, even though he lacks any of his usual companions, he works well with Daniels (even if personally I found Burke to be a bit dull).The Clocks is a double-edged sword then; the convoluted and colorful nature of the mystery and characters manages to both engage by virtue of its complexity, but yet also make it harder to really be engaged since it is so deliberately filled with the famous red fish. So as a mystery I did not find it to be as rewarding or intriguing as the stronger films in the series, but as entertainment it still very much worked for me.

Adapted by Stewart Harcourt from a late Poirot novel (and not one of Christie's best) 'The Clocks' turned out to be unexpectedly good. Harcourt gives the whole thing a 'pre war spy thriller' twist and the whole thing moves at a brisk but never confusing pace. The seaside setting of Dover made a nice change and the casting was generally very good indeed.Tom Burke is engaging as Poirot's sidekick Lt Race and I very much enjoyed Phil Daniels as Insp Hardcastle - a perfect counterpoint to Poirot. Anna Massey and Jaime Winstone are excellent in the largest supporting roles but I also loved Lesley Sharp as a glacial, ne'er do well Miss Martindale, Frances Barber (always terrific) as the strident Merlina Rival and (probably best of all) Beatie Edney as the eccentric 'catwoman' Mrs Hemmings.I really enjoyed this production and hats off to Harcourt and his team for turning one of Christie's weaker plots into something really good!

This has to be the most disappointing of all the Agatha Christie stories brought to the TV screen by Masterpiece Theater and starring David SUCHET as the mastermind detective Hercule Poirot.The story is so far-fetched in concept and cluttered with such a lot of nonsense about a spy plot and the sinister group of people involved, with every facet of the story straining credibility from the start. And this, despite a fine central performance by ANNA MASSEY as a blind receptionist who finds a murdered man behind her sofa and is unable to explain either his identity or the circumstances of his death.As usual, the production values are excellent and the acting by all concerned is on a high level of expertise. But the story seems so absurd and is hard to follow once the various details come to light, making it appear that even Poirot will be unable to unwind the tangled mess of events.Very disappointing and certainly not one of Agatha Christie's more credible mysteries.