See How They Run – a star-sprinkled comedy whodunit – leaves no Agatha Christie cliché unturned, says Simon Morris.
See How They Run is a murder mystery set backstage at a West End production of another murder mystery. Not just another one, but the most famous one in the world.
It's Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap long before that play claimed the astonishing record of longest-running theatre production ever.
This is 1953 and the play is celebrating a mere 100 performances.
What better way to celebrate than with a real-life murder? The victim is a Hollywood director who's planning to make the film of The Mousetrap.
Somebody call the police! Or in this case, Saoirse Ronan and Sam Rockwell.
Now, I love both Saoirse and Sam. They can do no wrong generally, and they certainly don't here... exactly, even if Sam as a run-down London copper is puzzling casting.
Saoirse performs in her actual Irish accent for a change and is very funny.
As always, in this sort of story, suspects come and go, including cast members, producers and writers such as the pompously theatrical Mervyn Cocker-Norris.
Again, I'm not sure the great David Oyelowo - last seen playing Martin Luther King in Selma - would have been my first choice to play a sort of low-rent Noel Coward.
But why not, I suppose? And waitm there's more…
Several of the characters are real people - like the producer John Woolf, fresh from making The African Queen with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn, and the two stars of The Mousetrap, Sylvia Sim and Richard Attenborough.
At the risk of being nitpicking - not to mention, borderline height-ist - why pick an actor nearly 20 centimetres taller than the future Lord Dickie?
But perhaps we shouldn't linger on the details. Really, it's the star performances we're here for.
As the energetic Constable Stalker, Saoirse Ronan is every over-enthusiastic Agatha Christie sidekick ever rolled into one.
Sam Rockwell plays a burnt-out detective with an oh-what-a-giveaway name - Inspector Stoppard.
If you're remotely familiar with the works of England's fire-cracker playwright Tom Stoppard - particularly his own Agatha Christie spoof The Real Inspector Hound - you'll know what See How They Run is aiming at.
Think a loving pastiche of the period blended with a certain sort of English play and some Hollywood jazz combined with a real-life murder mystery.
There's certainly fun to be had in spotting the references - Agatha Christie references, Tom Stoppard references, Richard Attenborough references...
The most elaborate one explains Constable Stalker's presence due to the rest of the CID being tied up with the real-life Rillington Place murderer.
Which later became e a movie starring Richard Attenborough. Playing a murderer named Christie. Had enough?
As much as I love the cast - including another favourite playing Agatha Christie herself - See How They Run is nowhere near as clever as you'd like it to be.
Writer Mark Chappell and director Tom George are having a lovely time, but they're not exactly Tom Stoppards - or even Agatha Christies for that matter.
Saoirse Ronan is the best thing in the movie - as usual - in her first full-on comedy role.
Sam Rockwell is less comfortably cast, but he's clearly a good sport about it all. His accent is good enough and he keeps an admirably straight face given some pretty lame material.
See How They Run is really an old-fashioned TV sketch jam-packed with celebrity guests - and enjoyable at that level.
It's a relief to see something like this come in at a reasonable hour and a half. Others could take notice.
