Example Of The Moral Dilemma Of Murder On The Orient Express Essay

The title of the movie is “Murder on the Orient Express”. It is based on a famous novel by Agatha Christie. The novel has been adapted for television two times (Laurel, 2010).
The protagonist in the movie is Hercule Poirot who boards a luxury passenger train called the Orient Express that is traveling to London from Istanbul. On the second night of the Orient’s journey, the train gets snowbound in Yugoslavia (Eirik, 2013). That night a businessman with American origin by the name Samuel Ratchett (Toby Jones) gets murdered. Samuel has been stabbed several times, and it also appears that he was drugged. The train’s director and Poirot’s friend named Xavier Bouc (Serge Hazanavicius) requests Poirot to conduct an investigation into the murder so that by the time Police arrived there would be an explanation. Poirot interviewed all the people who were on board the Coach and collected evidence from the deceased’s room. The obtained evidence eventually leads Poirot to a crime of kidnap and murder of a young girl named Daisy Armstrong by a man by the names Lanfranco Cassetti that took place five years back. Cassetti collected the ransom from the wealthy Armstrong’s but killed the child. Cassetti was tried for the murder but never convicted. After the acquittal, he fled the country. Poirot eventually concludes that Ratchett the deceased is Cassetti. Poirot discovers that the train director has personal connections to the criminal Cassetti. Surprisingly, all of the passengers on board also have connections to the Armstron family. It is, therefore, clear to Poirot that everyone in the coach had a reason to kill Cassetti (Laurel, 2010)
Poirot faces a dilemma at this point. Who among the thirteen people who were inside the coach committed the murder? They all had a motive (avenging the death of Daisy Armstrong) but who among them should be charged with murder? Before the authorities arrive, Poirot gives a two reason proposal to Bouc. It is up to Bouc to decide what he will tell the Police (Eirik, 2013). The first proposal is that someone boarded the train and committed the murder then left. The second proposal is that all the 13 people who were in the coach were all complicit of murder except one as a result of the conducted investigations. A woman who is identified as the murdered girl’s grandmother agrees that the second proposal is real. The protagonist faces these two choices as the solutions to the crime. It is clear that the thirteen people inside the coach were the murderers. In Poirot’s position, I would have gone with the second option because:
1) It is not a coincidence that 13 people with a similar connection boarded the same coach on a journey. It must have been planned.
2) The 13 people on board the coach had concealed their real names at first. The motive must have been sinister.
3) Linda Arden, who is Armstrong's grandmother, agrees that the second proposal is real. She is a sane woman, and her word can be taken to mean what she says.
It is clearly not by chance that 13 people with a shared pain and reason to kill the deceased boarded the train and ended up inside the same coach. It was a planned and well-calculated move. Even if it was by coincidence that they ended up in the same coach, is it another coincidence that the same coach was Ratchetts coach? It cannot be so. It is also worth noting that the occupants of the coach attempted to conceal their true identities. Armstrong’s grandmother whose real name were Linda Arden had posed as Mrs. Hubbard. It is the second point that clearly shows that the murderers were the 13 people. The final reason is that Linda Arden eventually agreed that they killed Ratchett. She is a sane woman, and her word can be taken for what she says.
Ratchett was murdered by the Armstrongs. They had a reason to be bitter with the fact that the criminal was never punished, but they should not have taken the law into their hands. They should have pursued an alternative means of revenge like appealing against the 5-year-old ruling. It is sad that they got on the wrong side of the law after losing a beloved one.

Works Cited

"Hercule Poirot: Murder on the Orient Express on Masterpiece Mystery PBS – A Recap & Review." Austenprose A Jane Austen Blog. 16 July 2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2015. <http://austenprose.com/2010/07/15/hercule-poirot-murder-on-the-orient-express-on-masterpiece-mystery-pbs-–-a-recap-review/>.
"Investigating Agatha Christie's Poirot: Episode-by-episode: Murder on the Orient Express." Investigating Agatha Christie's Poirot: Episode-by-episode: Murder on the Orient Express. Web. 28 Feb. 2015. <http://investigatingpoirot.blogspot.com/2013/10/episode-by-episode-murder-on-orient.html>.