Enjoyable if forced murder mystery whodunit kind of thing played to the max and beyond pretty much as a two-hander by Caine and Reeve. "Deathtrap" seems to try to send up every Agatha Christie - type concoction there's ever been, throwing in more twists than a Chubby Checker revival show, but seems to forget that Peter Schaffer's "Sleuth" got there before it a decade earlier.
Caine's in on this of course, he now playing the Olivier role as the ageing dominating schemer of the two, with Reeve as the initially submissive but later resistant junior partner in the former's nefarious, ingenious if somewhat far-fetched plan to bump off ailing wife Dyan Cannon (who couldn't look healthier, as a matter of fact) and get his hands on her massive fortune.
The initial twist is well staged and does come as a big surprise but subsequent events fail to repeat the trick and the insertion of the ludicrous Scandanavian medium Helga Ten Dorp (there must be an in-joke anagram in her name I've not yet deciphered) to sweep up the pieces with her thick-as-Nordic-snow accent takes it just too far over the top.
For all that, it's directed at pace with no let up on the camp factor from the normally straight-arrow Sydney Lumet and features a slightly awkward full-on kiss between the leads with a complete lack of conviction on either side. It's one of perhaps too many unintentional comical scenes in this play within a play within...you get the idea, but you sense that no-one minds too much in any case, so irreverent is the whole concept and execution here.
Caine's in on this of course, he now playing the Olivier role as the ageing dominating schemer of the two, with Reeve as the initially submissive but later resistant junior partner in the former's nefarious, ingenious if somewhat far-fetched plan to bump off ailing wife Dyan Cannon (who couldn't look healthier, as a matter of fact) and get his hands on her massive fortune.
The initial twist is well staged and does come as a big surprise but subsequent events fail to repeat the trick and the insertion of the ludicrous Scandanavian medium Helga Ten Dorp (there must be an in-joke anagram in her name I've not yet deciphered) to sweep up the pieces with her thick-as-Nordic-snow accent takes it just too far over the top.
For all that, it's directed at pace with no let up on the camp factor from the normally straight-arrow Sydney Lumet and features a slightly awkward full-on kiss between the leads with a complete lack of conviction on either side. It's one of perhaps too many unintentional comical scenes in this play within a play within...you get the idea, but you sense that no-one minds too much in any case, so irreverent is the whole concept and execution here.