Pinter rewrites Sleuth???

...for Kenneth Branagh's new film, if you can believe it.

Make no mistake: Kenneth Branagh's ''Sleuth'' is not a remake of the 1972 film....Inside Branagh's charming English manor is a starkly modern, technology-enhanced interior against which [Michael] Caine, playing a successful detective novel writer, and Jude Law, as a struggling actor having an affair with the older man's wife, escalate their power struggle....

Branagh said the difference lies in the sparsely written screenplay by British playwright Harold Pinter, which he described as a ''testosterone-fueled gladiatorial combat.''

Wouldn't that be like hiring Edward Albee to rewrite, say, Plaza Suite?

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

And yes, Caine also starred in the original Sleuth film, based, of course, on Anthony Schaffer's (yes, twin brother of Peter) play... Now I don't want to be a "spoiler," but all I'll say are the words "surprise ending" and "Michael Caine's make-up," add a question mark, and leave it at that.