History
Caine had starred as hairdresser Milo Tindle opposite Laurence Olivier's novelist Andrew Wyke in the 1972 film Sleuth, with each being nominated for an Academy Award for his performance. In the 2007 film, Caine took the role of Wyke, and Law took Caine's role of Tindle.
This was the second time Law performed a film character originated by Caine, the first having been the title role of Alfie. Caine himself had previously starred in two different roles for two versions of Get Carter.
According to many accounts, this set out to be a remake of the 1972 version, but Pinter's screenplay offered "a fresh take" on Shaffer's play and "a very different form" from the original film.
In his review of the film's debut at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, Roderick Conway Morris observed: "The reworking of the play is not just an adept transformation of theatre to film ... but also casts a revealing light on social history, reflecting the enormous changes in English society, language and morals in the nearly 40 years since the play first appeared on the London stage."
The screenwriter, actors and director insisted that this Sleuth was not a "remake." Law called it "a completely reinvented Sleuth... It didn't feel like a remake. I always loved the idea at its heart of two men battling it out for a woman you never meet." Law further felt that he "was creating a character (Tindle), I wasn't recreating one." Caine said, "I never felt that I had gone back to Sleuth." He called the Pinter script "an entirely different thing. There isn't a single line in it that was in the other one, and Pinter had never seen the movie. Jude gave him the stage play and said, 'Write a screenplay for me' ... It was a completely different experience." In a television interview conducted on RAI TV during the Venice International Film Festival, Caine stated: "If the script hadn't been by Harold Pinter, I wouldn't have done the movie."
Pinter said, "It's a totally new take...I had not either seen or read the play, and I hadn't seen the film adapted from the play either, so I knew nothing about it. So I simply read the play and I think it's totally transformed. I've kept one or two plot things because you have to but apart from that, I think I've made it my own."
Caine stated, "The first Sleuth I thought was great and the second Sleuth I thought was great until I read the reviews. I said to Pinter, 'What film did they show them?' I have a feeling that Sleuth will be rediscovered some day."
Read more about this topic: Sleuth (2007 Film)
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