Dead Again Review
Director/actor Kenneth_Branagh made a stylistic shift for this 1991 reincarnation mystery, playing a Los Angeles private eye (with a note-perfect accent, mind you) who comes across an amnesiac woman Emma Thompson, with the almost immediate result that he begins to have nightmarish flashbacks to another life, where he was a brilliant European orchestra conductor, Roman Strauss, and the mystery woman was his wife, Margaret. The subsequent tale both ravels the threads nicely, and unravels the truth exquisitely, with only a somewhat clumsy dénouement betraying Branagh's assured touch as director (here turned towards adapting a handful of elements from Hitchcock's bag of tricks). Dead Again is a curious mystery though, with complexities that rival those to be found in the films of Nicholas_Roeg. Scott_A._Frank's script weaves past and present threads together, carefully concealing the truth from the viewer without cheating in any way, avoiding a failing that's become all too common with mystery stories. Branagh's self-assurance leads to a radical place for a major Hollywood film -- Frank's script was left alone unless changes were absolutely needed. Dead Again is a clever piece of work -- engaging, suspenseful, and sometimes even edge-of-seat thrilling. Steven E. McDonald, Rovi
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