It’s no secret that Rian Johnson’s mystery films, Knives Out (2019) and Glass Onion (2022), drew heavy inspiration from the works of Agatha Christie. In fact, Johnson based his charming Southern detective off of Christie’s series of mysteries following the cases of Detective Hercule Poirot. These stories have been adapted time and again by a variety of fantastic actors in the century since the stories were first published. Perhaps the most notable were David Suchet’s acclaimed 25-year run as the character on ITV’s Agatha Christie’s Poirot for which he was nominated for a BAFTA, and Peter Ustinov who played the French detective six different times and is considered by many to be the definitive iteration of the character. Most recently, we’ve seen the stories of Hercule Poirot brought to the big screen by Kenneth Branagh in Murder On The Orient Express (2017) and Death On The Nile (2022). And while Branagh is giving quite the eccentric performance in both, he’s outshone by the goofy charm of a character based on Poirot. Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) takes the goofiness of classic Poirot, his talent for crime solving, and infuses it with modernity to create a character that ultimately leaves a much stronger impact than Branagh’s Poirot.

Even when you get into the minutia of differences between Blanc and Poirot’s personalities, backgrounds, and respective approaches to a new case, Blanc still comes out on top as the Best Goofy Detective.

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Kenneth Branagh's Poirot Is All Business

Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot 2x1

This is best seen by simply comparing how both men's eccentricities show themselves in their respective film series. For Branagh's Poirot, it’s his film’s beginnings that seek to show off his reputation and quirks the most. Murder On The Orient Express opens with Poirot neurotically comparing the sizes of eggs before swiftly cracking a random local case and cracking wise at the same time. Death On The Nile similarly gives us a series of character introductions while Poirot puzzles over some mini desserts and fusses over there being an uneven number of dishes. His fanciful mustache stays with Poirot throughout the story, but in both Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile, the degree of whimsy Poirot carries diminishes as the story goes along and the case gets more convoluted.

Once the murder takes place, Branagh’s Poirot is all business. He’s quick to jump on any suspicion he has and seems to keep everyone at arm's length as he investigates those suspicions. This is a sharp contrast to Blanc who uses his affable nature in order to get people to keep their guard down around him while he investigates. It’s the nature of many of Kenneth Branagh’s films to take a Shakespearean approach and build out the characters as dramatic figures (fitting with Branagh’s long history with the playwright) but that dramatic approach leads to Poirot’s eccentricities needing to be lessened. Knives Out and Glass Onion, on the other hand, are both characterized by a distinct tongue-in-cheek tone. They revel in their genre awareness and even the characters who aren’t Blanc have a sort of playful and cartoonish aspect to them that lends particularly well to the satirical edge that Rian Johnson imbues the films with.

Benoit Blanc Is a More Approachable Detective Than Branagh's Poirot

Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc in Knives Out
Image Via Lionsgate

Blanc uses his Southern charm and eccentric nature to disarm people. He does this with the Thrombey’s in Knives Out with his initial interviews, and he dials it up to eleven in Glass Onion as he plays clueless throughout the first act, pretending to believe that Miles Bron (Edward Norton) invited him to his island. Benoit Blanc is an incredibly dedicated detective who’s determined to solve his cases but that determination rarely turns him into a cold person. Even when he suspects Marta (Ana de Armas) in Knives Out, he still lets her drive off course when she says she has an errand, he waits patiently for her outside listening to Broadway tunes seemingly unaware of what’s happened until an ambulance shows up. Blanc’s the kind of guy to use a donut as a metaphor for murder and carry that analogy into the confrontation with the murderer himself. Even when he’s in the middle of solving a case, he’s still showing little eccentricities along the way.

This carries on and, if anything, is heightened even more in Glass Onion. Blanc is playing the fool basically the entire time he’s on the island with the Shitheads and delighting in poking at Miles Bron’s weaknesses. Blanc ruins Miles’s mystery with delight as he watches the real thing unravel itself before him. And unlike Branagh’s Poirot at the end of Murder On The Orient Express, Blanc doesn’t struggle with the conflicting moralities of revenge and following the book. He knows he himself can’t condone retribution from his position, but he’s more than willing to avert his eyes to see justice done. This not only paints him as a detective that prioritizes finding truth over answering to the law but also as a man who, above seemingly all else, is driven by empathy. We see this a bit from Poirot in his decision to not reveal the truth of the murder in Orient Express, but it's hard to imagine him stepping aside while Helen (Janelle Monáe) sets the Mona Lisa ablaze.

Blanc’s just weirder than Branagh’s Poirot. He fiddles with a coin while he puzzles out cases. He sits in his bathtub solving impossible mystery novels and playing Among Us with his A-list celebrity friends. He wears a romper and ascot to the pool. He suggests a wildly dangerous plan to bring a school teacher in as his partner, and it works. He’s the kind of guy who considers Batman the world’s greatest detective. The kind of person who won’t actively help Helen burn down the Glass Onion but will gladly sit smoking a cigar outside while it burns. His little quirks are sprinkled throughout the films, and they help to flesh him out as a character and endear us to him for more than just his intellect.

Benoit Blanc Has Better Partners Than Poirot

Janelle Monae and Daniel Craig Sitting on a Bench in Glass Onion
Image Via Netflix

There’s also a significant difference drawn between Craig’s Blanc and Branagh’s Poirot in how their respective stories deal with their partners. For Poirot, he finds his right-hand man in his friend Bouc (Tom Bateman) but Bouc himself has little to do with the central mystery. He’s present for both films but most of the time he’s relegated to being a side character that Poirot can use as an audience surrogate to explain things to. Bouc has no personal connection to the mystery. He works on the train but doesn’t know the passengers in Murder On The Orient Express, and he’s friends with the victim in Death On The Nile, but his personal stake in the conflict is considerably less than many of the other characters. Bouc mostly exists to be the in-the-know guy who can explain all the various characters' reputations to the outsider Poirot. When he dies in Death On The Nile, it’s devastating for Poirot yet we as an audience can only care so much given how little we truly know about him as a person outside his romantic exploits. Poirot is our lead and his partner is often little more than a sounding board.

Blanc’s partners, on the other hand, are incredibly integral to the films' plots. Marta and Helen are not side characters, they are leads. Marta is undoubtedly the protagonist of Knives Out and Helen shares that title with Blanc in Glass Onion. Rather than being friends with the detective who helps him to understand the setting he’s found himself in, both Helen and Marta are strangers to Blanc. Their involvement in the story is because of their own personal connection to the case at hand, not as a go-between for our detective and the colorful cast of characters. We are heavily invested in the arcs of Helen and Marta outside their relationship with Blanc, we want to see them succeed on their own terms. And we also want to see them find justice because of how closely related they both are to their respective cases.

Both of these women have been wronged and seeing the case solved not only resolves the murder but also brings catharsis to the suffering these characters have gone through. We feel a special attachment to Helen as we, like Blanc, understand her to be an outsider in particular danger within this lions’ den. She’s putting herself at considerable risk by taking up this task, and yet she not only manages to bring the truth to light with her own hands, but she also manages to tear down the man that killed her sister in the process. The difference in how Blanc and Poirot’s partners impact the narrative is astronomical, and that difference shows us a lot about how differently Blanc and Poirot are characterized. Branagh’s Poirot is undoubtedly the central figure of his stories but because of this and the lack of a co-lead in his partner, he comes off as something of a loner. A man who cares but who is also deeply haunted. By the end of both of his cases, he’s far from the goofy dessert fiend we saw at the beginning, he seems distant and sad. But Blanc is not only just a more positive guy in general but also the kind to get personally attached to his cases in a different way. He doesn’t just happen to have friends who are involved, he makes friends along the way. And we notice these differences between the two detectives in large part because of how differently the two series treat their respective detective’s partners.

Benoit Blanc, the Best Goofy Detective

Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc Holding a Drink in the pool in Glass Onion
Image Via Netflix

Hercule Poirot is one of the most iconic fictional detectives of all time. But when deciding between Benoit Blanc and Kenneth Branagh's Poirot as to who has had the biggest impact on the movie mystery landscape in the past few years, the victory goes to Benoit Blanc, hands down. Blanc manages to encapsulate the eccentric genius character type perfectly throughout his films, solving his cases while managing to surprise and amuse the audience along the way. Branagh’s Poirot, despite his fabulous mustache, fails to capture the same panache that’s made the character so beloved. He’s got quirks but at the end of the day, he’s a pretty no-nonsense detective that still struggles to understand the world in more colors than black and white. Poirot held the crown for Best Goofy Detective for long enough and with all the love Benoit Blanc’s been receiving, it feels fitting to pass on the title. Benoit Blanc takes the spirit of the eccentric detective that Poirot’s been championing for the last century and brings it into the modern age, keeping the spirit alive through fantastically crafted new mysteries that entice the viewer as much as they do the detective.