Reunion

With its B-movie cast, director Chris Nelson's murder-mystery comedy "Reunion" should be B-movie standard, but despite not being lol funny its whodunnit plot (from debut writer Willie Block & second-time Jake Emanuel) keep it engaging enough. Small-town douche Chace Crawford is slain at a 'Class of 01' high-school reunion at his mansion, with suspicion falling on those trapped there overnight (and subsequent days) by a huge snow-storm: Lil Rel Howery; politician Nina Dobrev; cop Billy Magnussen (good); reporter Jamie Chung; oddball Jillian Bell (meh); & teacher Michael Hitchcock... but whodunnit? It won't sweep any awards, but it ain't too bad.

This was a very straight-down-the-middle comedy mystery that you will likely completely forget about within days. At a 20 year high school reunion party, the person holding the event winds up murdered, and the killer is one of the guests who crashed overnight due to a snowstorm.

At first, I wasn't even sure I could finish the movie. The first 30 minutes are achingly unfunny. Once the murder happens, the film manages to kick into gear, delivering a couple of mild laughs. I actually thought the murder mystery plot was done well. Performances across the board are all great, with Jillian Bell (who usually annoys me), Jamie Chung, Nina Dobrev and Michael Hitchcock all being standouts.

I'm glad I managed to get a little bit of enjoyment out of it, so I don't feel like I wasted my time. But, with a copyright date of 2022, it's easy to see why this sat around unreleased for two years. Those first 30 minutes are an embarrassingly unfunny slog to get through, and although it improves from that point, it's hardly a laughfest.

What in God's name was this!

Half a movie looking like a bad teenage movie with bad acting and childish humour. Jokes and gags about sex, drinking and more sex are about 20 years old. Arrogant characters putting down weak-willing ones with the odd crazed one making stupid comments is also 20 years old.

Then out of nowhere come the finale and the whole plot of the movie comes out. A crime solved with the motive and murderers blurted out l, with details only the writers knew about. Totally ridiculous and pointless ending. And no reason to care about any of the characters either.

Oh, and there's another black character who just rambles constantly and is incessantly annoying, while throwing in the odd curse like a "tru-bro" does. How unoriginal.

Basically a load of utter rubbish!

A decent and enjoyable whodunit that has its attractive features (the cast, mostly), but it only works if you're not much demanding on the plot and some of its loose ends. I liked it, as there was a fair share of laughs and the mystery was quite involving, but it's one of those things I had to lower my expectations for a little while. If looking for a "Knives Out" kind of experience, better look elsewhere. "Reunion" is more about the awkward humor that comes in a high school friends reunion than it is actually about solving a murder case on an isolated mansion. But the detective story is there in between a series of confusions, attempts of rekindling with old crushes and letting past high school traumas come to surface.

It's hard to go wrong with those kind of films but when the intelligence is a little limited or the excess of cliches and characters stereotypes take over, it can be a problem. The moments at the party were a little annoying and most of the characters fun looked fake, abruptly cut here and there as if the director didn't know what he was trying to show. But when the crime happens and they all begin to investigate, it gets better and fun to watch.

"Reunion" hits a different and positive note as we don't have an outside detective looking for clues, but instead all the characters try to find who killed the host and the reasonings for it. Not exactly a jawdropping mystery but it's amusing anyway.

Its quality lies on the cast, all comfortable in their roles, specially the shy cop played by Billy Magnussen, and Jillian Bell as the least likely person to attend such party, as she was never part of the gang since she was a bully victim. Her creepy character is hilarious and steals the show. Didn't exactly like the loudmouth Ray (Lil Rel Howery), super annoying for the most part and only having his moments of triumph on the bathroom scene and at the end. He just tries too hard to be funny.

If the idea is to kill some time with some laughs and go for a detective mode while trying to solve the case before anybody, "Reunion" serves well exactly for such purposes and nothing more. 6/10.

If you have seen The Afterparty, or at least the first season, then you've seen this movie already.

It really just is a movie version of that whole season.

They've tweaked a few moments and characters, but it's not even slightly disguised in any real way.

The cast is slightly better than the cast in the series, and the budget is clearly slightly higher, but that's about it.

If you haven't seen season one of The Afterparty, then you might like this, if you like mediocre, uninspired murder mysteries. It's not terrible, just eh.

Not a whole lot more I can say, to be honest. Oh, it's better than season 2 of The Afterparty, so it has that going for it.