I try not to hold hold things up to Poirot (or, to a lesser extent, the Miss Marple series w/ Joan Hickman[or is it Hickson? I'm terrible...]) or P&P, because they're so incredibly hard to live up to, esp. when you get to the Poirot movies. The productions I saw were from, I think, the 70s. I kind of liked how they weren't quite likable characters., but the way you describe him in the books was largely my impression of him. The one I remember was when his sister was suspected of murder and he returned from abroad to find out who did it.