Rating: C+
Dir: Lana Read
Star: Michael Paré, Wendell Kinney, Jessica Dawn Willis, John Savage
The whodunnit seems to have been enjoying a bit of a renaissance of late, through the likes of the Knives Out franchise, and the recent adaptations of Hercule Poirot stories, starring and directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh. I must confess, it has never been a genre of particular interest to me, but this movie would be a decent way to pass a wet Sunday afternoon. Curl up on the sofa, unpack the chocolate digestives, and pit your wits against the best and brightest the police force has to offer. Mission failed there, personally: the obligatory extended explanation at the end was as much of a surprise to me as everyone else in the room. Except for the murderer, of course.
This takes place in a large house where prominent politician Andrew Rutherford has just dropped dead in the middle of a family dinner. Detectives Noah Rafferty (Paré) and Isaiah Baker (Kinney) have arrived on the scene, where a slew of relations and friends are all potential suspects. It doesn’t take long to establish that the victim was indeed poisoned, by cyanide-laced soup. However, it feels like everyone present has a motive, the method and an opportunity to have killed Rutherford. Making matters worse, a storm washes away the only path to the outside world, and it’s not long before the count of dead bodies increases past one. How many more will pass away before Rafferty and Baker determine whodunnit?
It’s all almost defiantly old-school, and feels like something you might have seen as a TV movie of the week back in the seventies. For example, there’s no mention of the Internet, although there is little here to tie it to any particular period. If you squint a bit, this could be taking place during almost any time from the forties through to the nineties. It’s nice to see Paré, often limited to supporting roles, given a leading role into which he can sink his teeth, and Rafferty comes over very much in the Colombo vein, albeit sartorially better. I kept expecting him to say, “Just one more thing…” Kinney makes a good foil as the less-experienced and local cop, off whom Rafferty bounces ideas.
On the suspect side, Willis (whom I remembered from The Woman Under the Stage) gets most to do, as family housekeeper Penny Church. But there was a point at which I was definitely convinced every single suspect was dead to rights, or perhaps they all did it – #OrientExpress. That’s a sign of a solid script in the genre, and the final twists were no more predictable. I will admit to being inexplicably irritated by the title, sarcastically wondering whether I need to have seen its predecessors, such as Death 3 Dinner. But given my limited interest in whodunnits as a whole, this managing to hold my attention is no small feat. If you’re a fan of the genre, this should scratch your itch. With a candlestick, in the ballroom, probably…
[The movie is currently available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV]