The Thursday Murder Club has left critics seriously divided following it’s much anticipated Netflix release on Friday.
The movie, based on the best selling novel by TV’s Richard Osman, stars Dame Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Sir Ben Kinsley and Celia Imrie as ‘geriatric sleuths’ who solve murders from their retirement home.
While the book received universal praise and sold 10 million copies worldwide as well as spawning three more novels, the movie has failed to please everyone, with some comparing it to a ‘flimsy ITV2 drama’.
Daily Mail’s Larushka Ivan-zadeh was full of praise in her four star review and said she was relieved Hollywood and Home Alone director Chris Columbus had not ‘messed up’ the British cosy crime story.
‘Thank heavens this movie adaptation is great, or there might have been a’ the (well-behaved) riot.
‘This amiable, undemanding and knowing (yet never too knowing) caper is like Miss Marple meets Only Murders In The Building; or a knitting circle version of Knives Out. Celebrating friendship, resilience, and the humour of aging, with just the right dash of emotion, this is feel-good murder at its finest.
The Thursday Murder Club has left critics seriously divided following it’s much anticipated Netflix release on Friday
The movie, based on the best selling novel by TV’s Richard Osman , stars Dame Helen Mirren , Pierce Brosnan , Sir Ben Kinsley and Celia Imrie as ‘geriatric sleuths’ who solve murders
The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey couldn’t have disagreed more and claimed the script dumbed down the novel’s mystery and failed to make the most of it’s all star cast, giving the film two stars.
‘No matter how enticing the prospect may sound on paper, and even with the efforts of director Chris Columbus (of Mrs Doubtfire and fame), the whole affair is so flimsy you’ll lose nothing from watching it on an iPad while cooking dinner’.
‘Each clue is presented plainly, legibly, and without even a hint of enigma, at one point simply written out on a Post-it and then shown directly to the audience.
She added: ‘The cast have been seemingly told to play their scenes so broadly and turned out towards the audience that you half-expect Kingsley to ask us to kindly move Colonel Mustard to the library’.
Meanwhile Radio Times‘ David Brown was more complimentary in his three star review, but also pointed out that the film appeared to be better suited to TV than a movie.
‘For what we have here is a tale that, were it to be deprived of its stellar cast, would fit snugly in the weekend schedules alongside the murderous yet somehow comforting goings-on in the likes of St Mary Mead or Midsomer’.
He said the story had ‘touches of pathos’ which despite being streamlined for the big screen were ‘still affecting’.
‘These moments may be fleeting, but the odd rumination on belonging and mortality add some welcome emotional shades to what can, at times, be a broad take on the source material’.
While the book received universal praise and sold 10 million copies worldwide and spawned three more novels, the movie has failed to please everyone
Some compared the big budget movie to a ‘flimsy ITV2 drama’ while others branded it ‘gorgeous’
Daily Mail was full of praise in her four star review and said she was relieved Hollywood and Home Alone director Chris Columbus had not ‘messed up’ the British cosy crime story
But The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey couldn’t have disagreed more and claimed the script dumbed down the novel’s mystery
‘Still, a couple of hours spent in the company of the key quartet is never less than comradely, and with a bookshelf full of subsequent cases just waiting to be dramatised, it’s unlikely that we’ve seen the last of our feisty famous four’.
Another reviewer to compare the film to a TV drama was The Sun‘s Dulcie Pearce, however they did not consider this a criticism in their glowing four star review.
‘Helen Mirren shines as feisty retired spy Elizabeth, Pierce Brosnan as ex-union man Ron, and Ben Kingsley as ex-psychiatrist Ibrahim, while Celia Imrie plays new resident Joyce, a retired nurse now at a loose end’.
‘The tone is whimsical, full of ITV Sunday night charm – and while sleepy in its rhythm, the film is peppered with sly humour. The cast’s charisma carries the quieter moments, though some may find their dynamic more gripping than the murder.’
However The Telegraph was less complimentary and gave the movie two stars ‘Steven Spielberg’s production company snapped up the film rights even before the first novel had been published.
Chris Columbus, of Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter films fame, is the director. Note, too, that it was financed by Netflix: no Scrooges in budgetary matters. So why, then, has the film been carried off with all the cinematic flair of a Sunday night ITV2 serial from 2006?’.
In another three star review The Guardian described the movie as ‘funny if slightly bland’ and while comparing the elderly characters to senior-citizen X-Men, said the film at times veered into being a kid’s TV show.
Peter Bradshaw wrote: ‘Now it has been adapted as a funny and likable, if slightly bland, comedy-drama for Netflix, which as one character amusingly and pre-emptively comments, feels just like a Sunday teatime TV crime drama’.
‘There’s a fair bit to enjoy here, with the club sometimes resembling a kind of senior-citizen X-Men group whose collective superpower is invisibility; old people can do things without people noticing them’.
Meanwhile Radio Times ‘ David Brown was more complimentary in his three star review, but also pointed out that the film appeared to be better suited to TV than a movie
Another reviewer to compare the film to an TV drama was The Sun ‘s Dulcie Pearce, however they did not consider this a criticism in their glowing four star review (Richard Osmon pictured with the cast)
‘When the plot has to accelerate to the point of pure daftness in its final act, the movie resembles not so much a Sunday night crime serial, but a weekday afternoon kids’ TV show. Nothing necessarily wrong with that of course’.
Elsewhere The Times‘ Kevin Maher declared the franchise was born as he gushed over the movie’s ‘tragic undertow’ and looked forward to a sequel while giving the film a whopping four stars.
‘There’s a heavy euthanasia subplot that’s retained from the book, and a suicide too. These elements are unavoidable, dark and disturbing, and they invest the surface comedy with a tragic undertow.
‘Yes, we’re chuckling at old folks in action, but we’re uncomfortable too, and consistently, quietly, sad’.
He added: ‘The sequence when Mirren and [co-star Jonathan Pyce] dance softly to Oh Very Young by Cat Stevens is easily the film’s best, and most meaningful. Roll on Murder Club 2’.
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