L'Heure zéro

I approached this movie with some skepticism: although France is to be commended for being pretty much the only country in the world right now that still produces films based on the works of Agatha Christie and releases them theatrically (the British Poirot and Miss Marple series are still running, of course, but they're made for TV), "Towards Zero" is directed by Pascal Thomas, whose previous Christie adaptation, the 2005 "By The Pricking Of My Thumbs", was about as dull as a film can possibly be. Thankfully, "Towards Zero" is much better. The main reason for this is simple: instead of being a talkathon with secondary mystery elements like "Thumbs", this is a good old-fashioned whodunit with nearly all of the typical elements of the genre in place: a luxurious mansion, a large but limited number of suspects, a cunning police inspector, family secrets, intense emotions and rivalries, red herrings, etc. The solution is unpredictable, even though it is based on the kind of double-deception that Christie has used quite a few other times in her stories. The cast is good, with the best performance award going to Laura Smet for her infuriatingly impulsive and impulsively sexy character. The locations and the settings are beautiful. A nostalgically enjoyable movie. *** out of 4.