Murder Mystery (2019)

June 24, 2019 2:01 PM

After attending a gathering on a billionaire's yacht during a European vacation, a New York cop (Adam Sandler) and his wife (Jennifer Aniston) become prime suspects when he's murdered.
posted by DirtyOldTown (8 comments total)

We watched this with relatives in town for the weekend who made this pick.

This is not a good movie, but it's not a jaw-droppingly, gobsmackingly stupid one, either. So that makes it probably the best comedy that is both starring and produced by Sandler in many years.

This is an ordinary Hollywood star comedy of the type that used to be very common and your parents would put it on after dinner when the cousins were over. It's neither particularly clever nor particularly stupid. It's neither especially charming nor especially unlikable.

It's not especially anything. It's fine. 4.5 out of 10 kinda deal.

But again, that make it makes it NUMBER ONE WITH A FUCKING BULLET for recent Happy Madison productions.

Best guess is: this happened accidentally and Sandler is just continuing his MO of buying comedy scripts that are set in places he would like to visit on a paid vacation, and this is set in Monaco. The fact that it is marginally competent and minimally enjoyable is a happy accident.

He will likely return to sucking hard almost immediately, I would assume.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:11 PM on June 24, 2019 [7 favorites]

I actually, unironically, liked this. It reminds me of Manhattan Murder Mystery, without Woody Allen's neurotic nebbishness, or The Impostors. As a Golden Age Detectives fiend, I particularly liked the lampshading of murder mystery tropes like the cynical detective, the overlooked unloved son, the gold-digger second wife, the secretly sensitive bodyguard, the masked villain, the car chase....

Maybe that makes me an unsophisticated pleb -- Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston are no Nick and Nora Charles, to be sure -- but I was genuinely amused, and the cast all seemed to be having fun, so that's good enough for me on a Thursday night.
posted by basalganglia at 6:26 PM on June 24, 2019 [2 favorites]

Same, this was much more enjoyable than expected. I think what I liked the most is that Aniston and Sandler really do have the chemistry of a couple that’s been together (happily) for twenty years.

They make each other laugh in a very comfortable, easy way, and each genuinely enjoys the company of the other. It’s nice and rare to see.
posted by incomple at 3:13 AM on June 25, 2019

I just looked at Sandler's filmography, and the last movie I saw that he starred in was Funny People, 10 years ago...And prior to that I'd seen his whole filmography up to and including The Longest Yard. Which, looking at the rest of his output, means I jumped off the ship almost exactly half of his film career ago.

This one was on my radar as a casual Workaholics fan* (it's directed by Kyle "Karl" Newacheck), so I threw it on on a lazy Saturday morning, and it was exactly perfect for that context. I genuinely like Sandler in witty-schlub mode, and this was a good showcase for that, and otherwise for really beautiful locations and a plot just barely involving enough to enjoy while also cleaning your house. In other words, this generation's Once Upon a Crime.

* Also, this is from the screenwriter of one of my all-time favorite movies, Zodiac...Which I'm aware doesn't actually mean much because I know that he's mostly written crap apart from that.
posted by doctornecessiter at 7:43 AM on June 25, 2019

Went into this expecting to hate it—I’ve never been an Adam Sandler fan,* but the SO wanted to see it—and found it pleasant enough. I suspect at least part of the reason was that Sandler played the straight man and Jennifer Aniston got to be the wacky one, and she pulled it off well. If someone asked me if I recommend it, I would say it’s fine but your Netflix-original-watching time is better served by Always Be My Maybe or Wine Country.

*I like him fine when he’s not in his own movies, like The Meyerowitz Variations or Punch-Drunk Love.
posted by ejs at 9:49 AM on June 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

I had a similar response to this as DoT. I threw it on to have something in the background while I was doing stuff around the apartment and its enjoyable. It's not as terrible as I suspected it might be. But its certainly not memorable or a film I would recommend. It is, as doctornecessiter pointed out, a good cleaning your house movie or, if you're like me, a good knitting movie.
posted by miss-lapin at 2:38 AM on June 27, 2019

I watched this a couple of days after Men in Black: International, and that comparison in execution made me feel this was less of a waste of my time. Surprisingly fine!
posted by cendawanita at 3:56 AM on June 29, 2019

Just saw this tonight. Like others in this thread have said, it wasn't good but it wasn't painful. I don't think I actually laughed at anything, but Sandler and Aniston have good chemistry and the final shot of them travelling on the Orient Express was cute and funny.
posted by orange swan at 8:50 PM on September 6, 2019