Murder Mystery is a 2019 comedy about a cop and his wife who go on a vacation but end up framed and on the run for the death of an elderly billionaire.
You hear the name Adam Sandler and if you’re any kind of film fan, freeze for an instance. What’s it gonna be? The guffaw-riddled return to his old school standards or something more aligned with his surprising dramatic turns. Seeing how his latest is streaming on Netflix though, you can lay a safe bet it’s leaning more toward the first than the second, Murder Mystery at least giving him some wiggle room to find more exploratory laughs. It doesn’t always work of course and settles quickly into a calculated absurd but isn’t lacking for what hardcore Sandler fans crave.
It’s fifteen years into the marriage of Nick (Sandler) and Audrey Spitz (Jennifer Aniston). He’s a long-time New York City cop who just failed the detective’s exam and isn’t exactly excited to tell his wife, looking to lie to her in waiting out for a second chance. She’s a hairdresser who works with other hairdressers complaining about how disappointed they are with their lame men because in movies that’s all hairdresser do. Audrey is still waiting for Nick’s long-promised trip to Europe, and realizing he’s found a way to distract her, buys tickets to surprise her. On the plane however, they meet a fellow named Charles Cavendish (Luke Evans), a devastatingly handsome man in First Class who soon invites them to join him on a ginormous yacht to celebrate the wedding of his billionaire uncle, Malcolm (Terence Stamp). However, the party is not what it seems, and after the rich man yanks everyone but is soon-to-be (and very young) fiancé Suzi (Shioli Kutsuna) from his will, the lights go, he ends up dead and the houseful of guests and relatives become suspect, putting Nick into detective mode…and more.
Directed by Kyle Newacheck and written by James Vanderbilt, who if you don’t know, has an impressive list of screenplay credentials, including The Rundown, Zodiac, and Truth to name a few, Murder Mystery is all very competently delivered, with some genuine moments that feel promising, even as it starts in the well worn trenches of stale marriage comedy lore. We meet a host of suspects, such a Tobias (David Walliams), Juan (Luis Gerardo Mendez), Colonel Ulenga (John Kani), Maharajah Vikram (Adeel Akhtar), all of whom go to great lengths in filling the costumes of their eccentric characters, the obvious Clue spin handled pretty well, considering.
At this stage in their careers, both Sandler and Aniston, who reteam after 2011’s Just Go With It, have the proper chemistry, and we’re so comfortable with their on-screen fit it’s sort of like the popcorn you made to watch with the movie – satisfyingly generic. To be sure, there’s not a lot on tap in terms of innovation and the film never really embraces the more dynamic opportunities to push this into proper screwball, a weird sense of restraint keeping it all less manic than it ought to be. But either way, it’s a solid pick for Netflix and if your even a casual fan of its leads, will find plenty to fill in the gaps between something more substantial.