My aunt wasn’t up to solving murders. In the “retirement home” days at the end of her life, my aunt was barely up to word searches and, perhaps, the occasional crossword puzzle. I like the idea of bored old people solving murders. Heck, I like the idea of bored old people solving jigsaw puzzles. But murders are a little more taxing, I imagine.
Coopers Chase is the nicest retirement village I’ve ever seen. And far from being a restrictive nanny community for retirement inmates, the place seems to have an open door policy on member activity and movement. Never pegged England for the land of fogie freedom. Well, hey, that’s cool. Among this old age utopia is a group of friends who meet weekly to discuss cold case murders. I naturally assume drooling on oneself and complaining about personal maladies are the #1 and #2 activities at such a place, so again, huzzah!
Elizabeth (Helen Mirren) is the de facto leader of the group that includes calculating Ibrahim (Ben Kinsgley), rough Ron (Pierce Brosnan), and newcomer former nurse Joyce (Celia Imrie). Worth note that Elizabeth lives with her husband, Stephen (Jonathan Pryce). In real life, Mirren is 80 and Pryce is 78. In the film, Pryce looks roughly twenty years older than Mirren. Meanwhile, in another film, move-and-shaker Ian (David Tennant), who co-owns Coopers Chase with Tony, plans to redevelop the area, booting the oldsters to the curb. The fun happens when Tony ends up dead.
Woohoo! Not a cold case anymore!
The premise is better than the execution. This film screams, “THE BOOK WAS BETTER!” And it was, tbh. The best part of The Thursday Murder Club is watching that gang play the
age card for all its worth – the core members are spry and intellectually nimble enough to don disguises and false personalities. (Elizabeth poses as a nun to get to get more than she ought to out of the local constable.) And yet, when expedient, the group knows darn well how to play the: “I’m old and feeble; how DARE you treat me the way I deserve to be treated!” card.
There wasn’t enough of that. And there wasn’t enough of the clever humor that made reading the tale so fun. But this was a good kick-off point, and there will almost certainly be more of these so long as Mirren and company keep their wits. I am wondering now if Chris Columbus just works better with children. Maybe. Lessee who directs The Thursday Murder Club 2: Death? Depends.
There once was a group of old geezers
Whose kin put them all in big freezers
But the fossils said, “Nay”
“We won’t go away”
“And we won’t be door matting pleasers”
Rated PG-13, 118 Minutes
Director: Chris Columbus
Writer: Katy Brand, Suzanne Heathcote, Richard Osman
Genre: Quality by Netflix standards
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Richard Osman fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People not into Murder, She Wrote
