TheRetroCritic

Clint Eastwood directs this grim, Oscar-winning thriller from 2003 about an investigation following the death of a young girl in a Boston neighbourhood. It stars Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon as three friends who each have a connection to the case in some way. The film is essentially a murder mystery with Bacon and Laurence Fishburne as the detectives and everyone else as the suspects. We're first introduced to the main characters as children and learn that one of them was abducted and abused by two strangers for four days in a dark basement once, which makes for not exactly the most uplifting start to the proceedings but which becomes an important plot point later. We then catch up with the grown up kids years later: Dave (Robbins), who was abused, is now married and has a child, Jimmy (Penn) is an ex-thief with a family and dodgy connections and Sean (Bacon) is a cop. When Jimmy's daughter is found killed one morning, everyone's world is turned upside down a

Peter Ustinov makes his first cinematic appearance as Agatha Christie's iconic Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in Death On The Nile , another all-star-packed outing for the sleuth, taking over from Albert Finney for many, many years to come. This time, the setting is much more exotic than it was in Murder On The Orient Express as Poirot and a bunch of dodgy suspects board a fancy cruise along the Nile. Of course, a murder takes place on said steamer and the renowned detective soon begins his investigation. Well... I say soon but don't expect any murder to occur within at least the first hour as this one certainly takes its time when it comes to moving towards the central crime. After that, luckily, we get all the awkward interrogations and suspicious developments you'd expect from that particular type of whodunit, ending of course with a gathering of all the remaining suspects and the big reveal. The plot follows a love triangle involving wealthy heiress Linnet Rid