Tuesday 30 May 2017

DEAD AGAIN (1991) Directed by Kenneth Branagh.


I'm going to swim against the tide with this one. When I first saw it years ago I quite liked it but seeing it again recently I found that it irritated the hell of me for a whole bunch of reasons. DEAD AGAIN was Kenneth Branagh's second film as a director. With his first, HENRY V, he was on safe, more familiar ground, Here he veers into Hitchcock territory with a psycho-drama about murder and reincarnation. Branagh and Emma Tompson play, respectively, a modern day private eye and an amnesia victim given to bad dreams of being murdered back in the late 1940's by her husband (also Branagh), In his past incarnation Ken has a goatee beard and the modern Ken doesn't and even when he is looking at a picture of his previous self does he or anybody else seem to realise. It is rather like Superman disguising himself as Clarke Kent and the entire staff of the Daily Planet failing to notice.Branagh's direction seems over emphatic as do all the performances. VERTIGO remade by luvvies springs to mind. I remain a Branagh fan, With Andy Garcia, Robin Williams. Rating **

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