Movie Review – Murder Mystery

I suppose if Netflix is looking to horn in on original Lifetime lightweights, it probably could do worse, than Murder Mystery but we don’t want them to. If you’ve set the bar low, why crawl under it?

Nick Spitz (Adam Sandler) is a sad sack New York Cop who’s told Audrey (Jennifer Aniston), his wife of 15 years more than a few little white lies, like he’s a detective, when he’s still a sergeant, and that he’s totally taking her on a European vacation for his honeymoon, etc. How he manages to scrape together money for this at the last minute no one bothers to explain, but due to charm and luck (both her, Nick is a putz), they talk their way onto the yacht of a billionaire and promptly get blamed for his murder. Using their less than sophisticated Middle America street smarts, they scramble to stay a step ahead of the police to solve the crime on their own.

Murder Mystery is essentially Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (Collins Crime Club, 1939) played in God Mode on the easy setting. Since it’s set up like Audrey’s favorite genre of books (the 170-page murder mystery) every clue and joke is signposted so no one has to leave the theater feeling like they couldn’t have solved it. Every character is a stereotype (also signposted), like the rakish rich black sheep (Luke Evans), exotic widow (Shioli Kutsuna), racially insensitive token POC (Adeel Akhtar), and beautifully dangerous ingenue (Gemma Arterton).
This was easily the longest 90-movie I’ve ever watched, and for your sake, Dear Watcher, I’m glad it’s streaming on Netflix so you don’t have to pay to see it. For a Netflix Original, gorgeous sets aside, the whole movies felt flat and phoned in. It’s camp and vamp played for laughs, except there isn’t anything funny. The awkward scenes of Audrey rubbing elbows with the wealthy elite don’t come off as charming, just very awkward. Nick comes off as boorish and uneducated, and if the movie was trying to highlight the aspect of the Ugly American in Europe, they nailed it. I was embarrassed for all of us.

I could go on about how I didn’t like it and how your subscription fee is better spent watching things that are interesting but it’s not worth it. If Netflix isn’t going to put effort into light comedy, I can’t spend the effort writing about it.

Murder Mystery is rated PG-13 for people swears, getting stabbed, people getting shot, over the top and awkward sexy times, a rather exciting car crash that comes at the last ten minutes, and some very impressive smoke rings