I love Lacey Chabert. She is beautiful, but can act and can show lots of emotions and is perfectly cast as a sweet girl with relatable feelings. And I wanted to like this movie because I like her.
But this movie didn't start well and kept sinking as it progressed.
This movie adheres to the Hallmark formula - an unlikeable person is murdered, Lacey and her co-star, Brennan Elliot, find all sorts of hidden connections between suspects and the victim. And then Lacey has an epiphany, solves the murder and then walks into danger and needs to be rescued from the murderer.
Lacey is a bit of a problem. Murder mysteries require characters to quickly unload lots of detailed information to the audience -and Lacey's high-pitched voice and speaking style don't function well here. Lacey portrays nuances of emotional relationships well (her depiction of he relationship with Brennan is a series strength) but does not come across as brainy or analytical or as a physical presence -which would help in a murder drama.. The fact that she runs around in stilletto high heels and 2 pounds of eye make-up is jarring. Please give her some flats!
And so much is depicted so wrong. Everything the uniformed policemen and homicide detectives do is so bizarre and unauthentic that it distracts from the movie. People are interviewed in ahllways. Brennan's character goes solo into situations that pose danger, and when a suspect that runs away and is caught and cuffed by a uniformed policeman, Brennan's character then walks him over to Lacey where he is casually grilled until he has related information to Lacey and the audience. And Lacey posing as a high-stakes poker player planted by the police is just ludicrous.
Lacey looks at 19 hours of videos of a game show to see if a contestant is being fed helpful information. Then in an epiphany, she thinks to look at the hands of people in the videos and discovers that information is being tipped by hand signals! My God, what was she looking at for 19 hours, if not looking at people's hands? This is just an example of many instances in which the script does not respect the intelligence of its audience or characters.
There simply is no tension in the narrative and the characters act unbelievably. Institutions like law enforcement and game shows are depicted unrealistically.
This Crossword Mysteries series need script writers who have talent, knowledge of their subject matter and who care about the quality of their work.
