The Thursday Murder Club stars Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, and Pierce Brosnan as a group of British pensioners living in a retirement village who solve cold cases during their allotted time in the village’s activity room before the Intermediate Weaving class needs the space. And at this point you already know if this is something you’d like to see, and there’s not a lot I or anyone else is going to say to dissuade you from that.
Not that I’d want to! The movie is, basically, what you expect, if a little bit less than that, which is to say it’s plenty light and charming, notwithstanding all the murder, and everyone seems to be having a good time, although Brosnan is the only one who really makes a meal out of the whole thing. It’s based on a popular series of books and finds our Murder Club facing the possibility of their home being sold by its owners and the adjacent cemetery being dug up, which is already more complicated than an introductory movie needs, but that’s kind of how the entire film goes. One of the owners is played by David Tennant, who gets to be all mean and scenery chewy, and the real mystery begins when his co-owner is murdered and our heroes need to figure out whodunit.
Realistically, our enjoyment of the movie has to rely on the charm of the cast, which features a lot of recognizable faces, and while only a few of them are asked to do much, everyone is up to the task. And that’s good, because the plot and dialogue feel as if various drafts of the script weren’t quite reconciled before shooting and everyone said, “well, ok, just carry on,” which is essentially the attitude we must have as we let any problems float on by. The film is directed by Chris Columbus, who’s never going to be accused of having a layered or nuanced point of view in his work, and much of the filmmaking and musical score feel stuck around 2001, when the director made the first Harry Potter movie. But I think Columbus largely delivers what he’s asked to do, and in truth, that’s all that’s really going to matter.
The Thursday Murder Club is on Netflix.
