creenwriter Harold Pinter and director Kenneth Branagh's updated version of Anthony Shaffer's cat-and-mouse thriller "Sleuth," throws a few new wrinkles into the original mix, making their version a delicious little movie in its own right.

The original, directed by Hollywood legend Joseph L. Mankiewicz from Anthony Shaffer's hit play, was a two-character, two-act battle of mind games that turn lethal. It starred Laurence Olivier as a wealthy novelist and Michael Caine as the younger actor in love with the older man's wife.

I'm not sure if anyone needed a remake of the original, even a slick face-lifted one, but here we are with Jude Law (Sleuth was made by Law's production company) as Milo Tindle, the young hairdresser and aspiring actor Milo Tindle. He's having a heated affair with the wife of Andrew Wyke (Michael Caine), a hugely successful pulp writer.

One night, Tindle visits Wyke's isolated country mansion and demands that Wyke grant his wife - with whom Milo is currently shacked - up a divorce. And so the games begin. As the camera frames Milo’s shifty eyes, then Wyke’s weathered, odious face, Wyke explains that he'll grant Maggie a divorce, fine, but won't make a financial settlement. And Maggie, he says, has become accustomed to a lifestyle that an unemployed hairdresser will be hard-pressed to afford.