None of the innocence of the original survive this dark and nasty remake. Harold Pinter's world overtakes Anthony Shaffer's and destroys it. The result is an entertaining, short, showcase for two actors from different generations. Michael Caine who's old enough to have been in the original and Jude Law who's young enough not to have seen it. But, he's clearly seen it and saw it as a major showcase for himself. He was right. The two actors go for it. They fight, they insult and humiliate each other as well as forgive, promise, lie and almost become lovers. Pinter is not a laugh a minute guy, he never was and the odds are he'll never be. But the strange combination of Caine, Law, Pinter and Branagh provide a brief, divertimento, concocted originally and with enormous success by a light weight thriller writer, turned upside down not nearly as successfully, by a heavy weight intellectual. An oddity worth part of your afternoon.
