Movie Review - Deathtrap

Deathtrap (1982)

Starring Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, and Irene Worth

Directed by Sidney Lumet

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

As the mystery-thriller aficionado that I am, Deathtrap is quite a lovely little flick.  Based on the play by Ira Levin which ran on Broadway for four years, director Sidney Lumet's version of the tale contains a bevy of twists and turns, laughs and double-crosses, and great performances from Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve -- all of which are reasons that you should check this out streaming on Netflix when you get the chance.

Aging playwright Sidney Bruhl (Michael Caine) is in the dumps.  His last few murder-mystery plays have been complete flops and despite his wife Myra's (Dyan Cannon) best efforts to make him feel better, he can't help but feel like a failure.  When one of his students from a class he taught sends him a finished play to critique, Sidney is awestruck at how fantastic the manuscript is which gives him the crazy idea to invite the student to his home, murder him, and steal the play, claiming it as his own.  When the young playwright Clifford Anderson (Christopher Reeve) enters the Bruhl home in upstate New York, he has no clue what he's getting himself into...and, it turns out, neither does the audience.

I'm wary to speak any more of this film except to say that, much like a play, the film takes place nearly all in the confined setting of the Bruhl house and essentially contains only five actors who all do a mighty fine job at mining both laughs and tension from the script.  Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve both play off of each other quite well, and Dyan Cannon (who was so very wrongly nominated Worst Supporting Actress of the year by the Razzies the year of this film's release) is over-the-top but in the best way possible as Bruhl's slightly neurotic wife.  There's also an incredibly amusing performance from Irene Worth as a psychic who knows a tad too much about the mischievous goings-on.

Despite its surprising nearly two-hour length, the film never wore out its welcome to me and even though I had seen this flick back when I was probably eleven or twelve, I was still genuinely intrigued and surprised by what playwright/screenwriter Ira Levin threw my way.  All in all, Deathtrap is an incredibly entertaining way to wile away two hours.

The RyMickey Rating:  A-