Roman noir: Chasse au trésor

As another poster pointed out, the background music is waaaaay too loud! At times it was so loud it drowned out the dialogue. The movie itself was entertaining for a cozy mystery, but the WAY TOO LOUD background really ruined it. It's like being in a chat room AND EVERYONE IS POSTING IN ALL CAPS while you are trying to communicate with someone.

The Mystery Bookshop is having some remodeling done courtesy of David Lascher and is crew and he's an old friend from childhood of Kellie Martin. But things seem to keep getting fouled up, but Kellie is indulgent blaming a lot of it on the loss of his father recently.

A stranger played by John Ratzenberger comes to town and after visiting Martin and Clarence Williams, III at the bookshop goes to a church that helps out alcoholics as their ministry. Ratzenberger is murdered and once again Martin and Williams are up against their irascible town police chief Casey Sander in solving it.

It all goes back to Vietnam and something these guys brought back from Cambodia. A most wealthy thing that they've elaborately hidden. Martin and Williams are reduced to following a lot of clues the late Mr. Ratzenberger laid down.

Not the best of the series, still has its moments.

Tyler Dell is the local plumber who looks after Samantha's pipes at the bookstore (no, really). Tyler's father (a Vietnam veteran) has recently passed away but returning to work seems Tyler's way of getting over it and he has plenty of work at the creaky Mystery Woman bookshop. A stranger visits the shop on his way through town (one Jim Carter) and at the same time a rare book goes missing. The police can find nothing and let everyone leave but later that same day Jim Carter turns up dead – stabbed with his fingerprints removed by acid. At his guesthouse he has left a package for Samantha – a valuable looking box containing a personal letter, a key and some post-it notes. The contents are clues but can Samantha work out what the clues mean, far less the reasons they have been left for her?

I have now seen several of the Mystery Woman series now and find them to be generally so-so and only good enough for viewers who are prepared to meet it on its level. The material is typical mystery fare and, as I have said before, it is all a bit "Murder She Wrote: The Early Years" but the story here does have enough to it to keep things moving and has a good pace to the development of the story. The constant soundtrack is a real pain here, as it feels like it is forced the mood too often – whether it is dark mystery, light comic touch or sentimentality. This bugged me but it came with the territory since the whole delivery is very clean and Corporate, lacking in anything that original and feeling pretty processed – all part of it being a Hallmark production I suppose. Although the plot is a bit (a bit!) unlikely and contrived, it does provide a nice set of clues for Sam to work through, which is what fans of the series will be looking for.

The cast match this level by mostly just doing the basics. They aren't helped by the script, which produces clunky and unnatural dialogue whenever it gets the chance – sure it tells a story but often the actors look uncomfortable with it. Martin still hasn't got it. She looks cute but she is never a real person and has nowhere near enough charisma to cover for her lack of character. Her relationships with other characters is also convincing, although it doesn't help that they are similarly clunky. Williams is stiff and hasn't much to do while Siemaszko just drifts round with even less to do and an ethics code that is dubious at best. Sander is overly gruff and stiff yet again as Connors.while O'Ross, Lascher and Barry all feature as the recognisable red-herrings (or not) of the film.

Overall then a so-so mystery film from Hallmark that will please those who are happy with the quality that will inevitably come with that. The plot is daft but developed at a good pace even if the script is clunky and the performances generally stiff. The overall mood is one of safety and material that is befitting the corporate image of Hallmark. Will be OK if you meet it on its level but many viewers will understandably see this daytime stuff to be below them.

7/10 - just what you'd expect from a Samantha Kinsey flick

Why do I watch Mystery Woman? I don't know, except that I love mysteries no matter how bad, and I am a fan of Kellie Martin as an actress and as a person. This series was beneath her, not particularly well written, well directed, or well acted. That about sums it up.

The story begins with some soldiers in wartime, probably Vietnam, finding a treasure at a destroyed Buddhist temple.

We then cut to the present day. The bookstore is having plumbing problems which are being remedied by Tyler Dell, from a local company. A man named Jim Carter shows up and while he's there, a rare book goes missing, and Samantha calls the police. But the book isn't anywhere.

Jim Carter confides in Samantha that he is in town to connect with his daughter, but he's murdered later on. He's left Samantha a note for his daughter and a box with clues inside -- but what they lead to is uncertain. And why leave it to Samantha? The reverend who runs the homeless shelter has a few answers as Samantha and her assistant Philby, who seems to have once been a government agent with big connections, try to solve the mystery of the murder and the box.

The culprit is evident in the first fifteen minutes. To show how sloppily written these shows are, one character is using an assumed name. Talking about him in the past, he's called by his real name except during a flashback where, for some reason, he is called by his assumed name. Sloppy.

Mystery Woman is low-key to the point of sleepwalking, with Clarence Williams III phoning it in and Kellie Martin doing the best she can. The police investigator is unpleasantly aggressive, and I can't decide if he's overacting or just comes off that way because everyone around him is so underplayed. Bad direction, anyone? The sad thing is, if I spot another one I haven't seen, I'll watch it. I'm a sucker for mysteries, even if it's Mystery Woman.