This is one for Sylists. The Podalydes brother put on, to quote the pop song, the style. In spades. Essentially they - Bruno as writer/director possibly a tad more than Denis as actor - have taken Gaston Leroux' celebrated 'locked-door' mystery, which was responsible seemingly for Agatha Christie's career, given it a lick of paint, thrown in some loving 'period' detail and added some of the finest actors in French cinema to the mix. There are those who will be disappointed that the 'mysterious' element fails to rivet attention; equally there will be others who relish the stylistic touches, the brilliantly whimsical opening credits featuring one of those carefully 'weighted' devices which delivers a ball to successively lower levels until it is deposited onto a train which then runs on its own miniature rails through open countryside and segues into a real train carrying four of the principals to the scene of the 'mystery'. Eccentricism is the order of the day which means that English viewers will have no problem relating to half the principals (ironically it has yet to be shown in England) and Podalydes is scrupulous in his attention to period detail, costumes, etc. Even setting the mystery itself to one side there is much to savor in the playing of such luminaries as Fanny Ardant, Sabine Azema, Michael Lonsdale, Denis Podalydes, Isabelle Candalier and Pierre Arditi. In total a very pleasant romp.

Recap: Mathilde, the daughter of professor Stangerson, is the target of a murder attempt. She survives, barely, but the case is a mystery. Mathilde had gone to bed, locked herself in a room with barred windows. The professor and his assistant Jacques is in the room next by, they hear the screams and gunfire. When they finally are able to break into the room, Mathilde has passed out bleeding, and a mysterious handprint in blood are on the wall. But Mathilde is completely alone, and besides from the handprint, there are no traces after the murderer. Where did he come from, where did he go? From all over France people come to the castle to solve the mystery. The police are there of course, led by Inspector Larsan, known for solving unsolvable cases. Investigating judge De Marquet is there to lead the interrogations and reporter Rouletabille, who seems to have a little edge with Mathilde's fiancé Darzac. Together, and competing with each other, they work to catch the murderer, who still lurks about.Comments: A simple mystery, with an obviously complex answer. This is apparently a classic, although by judging from this movie I can't really understand why. This version is not much to remember, and I do not know how true to the original it is. The movie has two parallel identities that try to compete for our attention. The first is obvious, the mystery. This is the overall plot and the foundation of the entire movie. It is too divided into two parts, first we need to catch/stop the killer then solve the mystery of how he did it. The problem is, when we hunt for the killer we get very few clues how to solve it, then when the movie feels like we can't hunt anymore (though we haven't caught anyone yet), it tells the answer. It gives very little room for speculation and guesses, which is the real entertainment when dealing with a mystery such as this.This actually leads to the second part. The movie also wants to be a comedy. It is not very good at it though, and satisfies itself by being a little silly. Which leads to a feeling that you can't take it seriously, which lessens the experience of the mystery.Had the movie focused on one part, to be either a mystery or a comedy, not both, it would have benefited greatly. Then it could have put all its energy into doing what it wanted to, not divide itself and only go halfway with two parts.Still, it managed to keep my eyes open and was never boring. Therefore 5/10

Interesting comical actor direction... But nothing even close to the wit that we can read in the book. Another one of those sad cases where the book, much longer than a 2-hour adaptation would allow, is twice more interesting than the movie. And it's always sad, for someone who read the book before, to notice that they didn't hesitate to remove most of the secondary plot lines, and even change the configuration of the infamous "Yellow Room" (which was very important to the plot).But my worst worry would be for some of the actors they hired. Father Jacques is played by a man with an accent (what a stupid idea!) and a very bad actor. But even worse is Robert Darzac -- described as elegant and charming in the book, he also wears a mustache... Which he doesn't in the movie. Of course, the movie also forgets to render him as even remotely elegant or charming. And did I mention he's a very bad actor too? Well, maybe he just did what he was asked to do... Then it's probably the director's fault.Do yourself a favor and read the book. It's excellent (and basically the book that inspired Agatha Christie in her youth), and doesn't need any of these fancy "inventions" that plague the movie.

I saw this movie at a film festival. I had read the book, too. This movie has several qualities: the actors are very good, the setting is typical, and the script is very well done. The storyline is quite good, it's about a journalist trying to outsmart a detective by solving a seemly solutionless crime. The movie added a nice comic touch that the book just didn't have. The clumsy photographer is a good comic relief from the crime/drama part of the movie, and blends well into making the movie so well-balanced. Also, all characters are so unique, so different from each other, that this movie distinguishes itself from many movies where character development is not as important.All movies have faults though. The plot of this movie is a little far-fetched, and that gets frustrating, because I like to try to guess the outcome of movies when I watch them. Also, some doubts remain at the end about some elements. This could be good, could be bad, depends on what you like to see. So the only person who truly understands everything is Rouletabille, the journalist, and until he tells us, it's virtually impossible to know. It's both suspenseful and irritating.Overall, pretty good, yet no social involvement or hidden message. Just good old entertainment, for those of you who like crime movies. 8/10