Directed by: Tom George
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Saorise Ronan, David Oyelowo, Adrien Brody, Ruth Wilson, Reece Shearsmith
See How They Run is a lightweight murder mystery centered around Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, which has been running in London's West End since circa 1953 and is the world's longest running play. As See How They run opens in 1953, sleazy Hollywood director Leo Kopernick (Brody) is working at adapting the play to the big screen and making enemy after enemy in the process with his obnoxiousness and alienating personality. Leo narrates the first few minutes of the film describing the setup in which he would eventually become a murder victim. He is clearly not a fan of Agatha Christie's work: ("There are no dead bodies in the first ten minutes")
Leo is killed in brutal fashion and his body placed on a couch in the middle of the stage. Inexperienced Constable Stalker (Ronan) and drunken Inspector Stoppard (Rockwell) are assigned to the case. Ronan is a lovable, plucky Irish cop and Stoppard speaks and behaves as if he is channeling Captain Jack Sparrow. Rockwell and Ronan are incredibly accomplished actors, of course, and we wonder why See How They Run requires their services. But they are in See How They Run all the same and it is always fun to see them.
There is no dearth of suspects in Leo's murder. Everyone he ever came in contact with has a reason to want to kill him. This includes screenwriter Mervyn Cocker-Norris, whose every draft is met with disdain by Leo, producer John Woolf (Shearsmith) who is hiding an affair he is having with his assistant which Leo discovers and uses to his advantage, and at one point even Stoppard himself is a suspect. See How They Run is amusing for a while, with an ending in which the group of suspects (and Agatha Christie herself) are gathered in a room together Christie-style. Following the movie, I found myself not thinking much about it, which can be a positive or a negative depending on your worldview.
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