Considering that the director, screenwriter and stars of Sleuth (2007) boast two Academy Awards, twelve nominations and a Nobel Prize for Literature between them, its ineptitude is quite staggering.

The script is by Harold Pinter, who proudly maintains that he has never seen the 1972 screen version of Anthony Shaffer’s stage play, directed by Joseph ‘All About Eve’ Mankiewicz and adapted by Shaffer himself.

But at 77, surely the erstwhile laureate must be aware that pride comes before a fall?

Because where Shaffer’s adaptation was smart and deliciously sneaky (and gave Morrissey the lyric “a jumped-up pantry boy who never knew his place”), Pinter’s inane rewrite has all the sophistication of a sniggering schoolboy.

The performances are equally unconvincing. Yet while the horribly mannered, and repetitive dialogue provides Jude Law with an excuse for flailing like an amateur, no such sympathy can be extended to Michael Caine who, having starred in the original, walked into this yawnsome chasm with both eyes open.

Taking the role formerly inhabited by dear, dear Larry Olivier, Caine now plays egotistical crime novelist Andrew Wyke, leaving Law to have a crack at his adversary, hairdresser/struggling actor Milo Tindle.

Wyke’s wife has left him for Milo. Hoping to hurry along the divorce, Milo comes to visit the author at his electronically fortified country manor.

Of course, the devious Wyke is not about to give up his missus that easily. Motivated by humiliation, he lures Milo into a staged burglary. It will supposedly benefit them both but turns out satisfactorily only for the old goat.

Then a seedy detective shows up and it becomes abundantly clear that Wyke’s little game is not over by a long chalk. Pity.

Shaffer’s set-up is highly intriguing; tragically, Branagh’s execution doesn’t work on any level - as mystery, black comedy or psychological drama.

And someone ought to have had the heart to tell Pinter that nobody is shocked by rude words and homosexual undertones these days.

Despite all the name-calling and Branagh's fancy surveillance-style camerawork, it’s like watching someone trying to knock some life into a remote control with flat batteries.

The director even abandons the CCTV gimmick halfway through, possibly after realising that it has absolutely no relevance to the plot.

The self-consciously framed scenes that remain hobble along to Patrick Doyle’s insistent Michael Nyman-esque score, making it all feel like a Peter Greenaway movie… minus the charm.

When Sylvester Stallone’s Get Carter is no longer the worst remake of a Michael Caine movie, you have to ask yourself: what’s it all about?

Elliott Noble