One of the main things that ruins Partners in Crime is the woeful miscasting of David Walliams as Tommy, have nothing personal against Walliams but there was the fear that he would be out of place and stick out like a sore thumb and that fear was proved correct. However, that is pretty much it for the good things.
While the acting is a vast majority really not very good, a couple of performances are decent, with particular mention going to an effectively menacing Jonny Phillips in The Secret Adversary, who shows that you don't have to do an awful lot to make one feel uneasy, and Christina Cole as a seemingly vulnerable Mrs Sprot, which Cole handles affectingly without being passive. It is also very stylishly filmed and atmospherically lit. The 1950s setting is evoked beautifully, the scenery is positively sumptuous and at times effectively mysterious and a lot of work clearly went into evoking the period, because the attention to detail is great. It has a few plus points, with the best thing about it being the production values. Finally giving it the benefit of the doubt, and without comparison to the source material and the previous Partners in Crime series, as someone who loves Agatha Christie and who has enjoyed a large amount of adaptations of her work this was disappointing.
Despite looking good visually, the casting just seemed off and even when advertised the writing seemed clunky.
But when advertised I surprisingly didn't find myself desperate in seeing this, which is highly unusual for an Agatha Christie adaptation. The Tommy and Tuppence books/stories are entertaining reads, though none of them are among my favourites from Christie, and the 80s Partners in Crime series is not only true in details and spirit to the stories but charming, suspenseful, light-hearted entertainment in its own right. Although Agatha Christie is one of my favourite authors, adaptations of her work have always personally been judged on how good they are on their own merits, regardless of how good or bad an adaptation it is.
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