REVIEW: See How They Run Is A Clever Spoof On Whodunits

It’s the 1950s and Agatha Christie’s legendary play “The Mousetrap,” is celebrating its 100th performance on the West End. With reviews raving and the box office soaring, stars of the production, Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) and his wife, Sheila Sim (Pearl Chanda), can’t help but be celebrating this momentous success. If that wasn’t enough, a cocky Hollywood director Leo Köpernick (Adrien Brody), movie producer John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith) and screenwriter Mervyn Cocker-Norris (David Oyelowo) are in town to discuss making the play into a film. All seems to be going swimmingly for all parties until Köpernick is found dead. Now they are all suspects, and it is up to Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) to solve the whodunit before someone else winds up dead.

Director, Tom George, has an interesting balance act over his head with his latest project. Unlike other whodunits or film adaptations based on Agatha Christie’s creations, See How They Run is an interesting mix of spoofing these tried-and-true whodunits while also navigating its own murder investigation. It’s an interesting juxtaposition that makes this story fun. As the murder investigation gets underway George takes just the perfect amount of time to setup the contrast between the two aspects of the film before utilizing said contrast to propel the story forward. Whether it be Cocker-Norris’ complaint about including flashbacks in his work after George had just completed a flashback of his own or the characters annoyance over films using words to update the viewers on a certain scene’s location then promptly flashing said location on the screen, the line is fine and George manages to walk on it seamlessly.

This balancing act benefits from See How They Run’s quick runtime, which is a little over ninety minutes. It keeps the script moving while also keeping the audience focused on the events unfolding with little to no distractions. If George took thirty minutes longer to tell this tale, viewers would become either bored with the repetitiveness contrast or end up turning the film off altogether.
There are not enough good things to say about this cast. From Ronan’s over-eager, and yet charming Constable Stalker to Brody’s in your face cocky Leo Köpernick, there is not a bad apple in the bunch. Each plays their character with the perfect amount of gusto that will leave audiences trying to decipher whether a character is a suspect or innocent bystander.

As Rockwell’s Inspector Stoppard aptly states towards the beginning of the film, “do not jump to conclusions”, and viewers should keep this in the back of their minds as the film plays out. There are multiple times throughout the film where viewers believe that they are closing in on the murderer, but are immediately thrown off the scent by Mark Chappell’s ever twisting script. This is definitely a film I recommend checking out, just maybe not in theaters. Give it a watch when it is released On Demand or Digital.

Grade: B+