Mr. Monk's Last Case

Well, I hope this won't be the last case for Adrian Monk. It's been so long since the series ended and it was a sheer joy to see the whole gang back together again.

Tony Shalhoub is such an underrated actor. He pitches everything just right and it's as if he has never been away for so long. He retains the quirkyness, the awkwardness and some great humour.

The plot is good, James Purefoy makes a good baddie and the supporting gang all do a great job. Jason Gray-Stanford (Disher) chips in with some hilarious attempts to solve the case, too.

So while i understand that Shalhoub might not want to get involved with another Monk series, I do hope he'll agree to do the occasional movie.

Some TV reboots -- or movie-length one-offs based on long-cancelled shows -- turn out to be major disappointments. Not so with "Mr. Monk's Last Case," in which the Defective Detective is called upon to investigate a horrifying accident involving his daughter's fiance. Once again, he drives everyone crazy with his obsessive/compulsive behavior -- the scene in which he pretends to be a bartender goes on for too long (which, frankly, the series' most memorable comedy bits often did, anyway) -- but watching him try to play master mixologist under the judgmental eye of a horde of customers was still laugh-out-loud funny. Balancing out the chuckles: Monk's suicidal tendencies, borne of the fact that he hasn't solved a murder in ten years (and hasn't even been asked to), the memoir he has written has elicited a polite but firm "No!" from his publisher, and he's beginning to feel not just unhappy, but useless. (Never has Shalhoub looked more hangdog, more emotionally drained; every crease on his aging face tells a sad tale all its own.) Most of the old gang is on hand to help him, the villain is as evil as any he's ever encountered, the ending is a tear-jerker, and if the Big Reveal -- that inevitable moment when he explains exactly how the crime was committed -- seems a bit predictable, so what? The movie is a fine addition to the Adrian Monk mythos, and -- even better -- it looks like this won't be his swan song, after all. Maybe he'll follow in Columbo's footsteps and keep coming back. We can only hope.

I am a Monk fan and Tony Shalhoub didn't disappoint. He was, as always, a delight to watch. But most of the other actors were mediocre, especially McGee, whose grief was not at all convincing. Even Ted Levine was unconvincing in his conflict of interests. The story had such a great potential if each actor had tackled into it and had taken their role as seriously as Shalhoub. Except for Monk's wife, everyone seemed to be there just to create a background for Monk.

I earnestly hope this is not Monk's last case, not only because I will gladly watch more of Monk any time but also because he deserves a better "last case," if there has to be one.

I'm a die-hard Monk fan and eagerly awaited this movie. However, I was disappointed to see the depressive turn the writers took with Monk's character. As another reviewer wrote, I too would have loved to see Monk embracing how the world dealt with germs during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mr. Monk gleefully witnessing the world wearing masks, using sanitizers amd wipes would have been hilarious. It seemed as if the writers weren't aware of the subtle nuances that make Monk "Monk". All in all, It was an enjoyable hour and a half. I loved seeing the old crew back together but it definitely missed its mark.

While one review here says that nostalgia is causing people to overrate this TV movie, I'm inclined to think that it's making people underrating it, because they're forgetting that, as funny and brilliant as the show could be, and as great as Tony Shalhoub was, the series always flawed and towards the end could be genuinely bad.

In the movie, Monk, an brilliant ex-detective with diagnostically fuzzy OCD is at the end of his always short rope. But when murder happens close to home (I really hate "this time it's personal" plot lines, but what can you do?) Monk comes out of retirement for what he's determined to be one last time.

As always, Monk unsteadily treads the line between character-driven comedy and cartoonish laughs. Monk sometimes responds as someone trapped in a world of obsessions, and sometimes just acts like a weird two-year-old having a freak-out.

In short, the movie, like the series is sometimes smart, and sometimes irretrievably dumb.

The mystery itself is decent though unexception - I figured it out way before Monk. The returning characters are decent although underutilized (except Randy, who is overutilized). The new characters are bland and add nothing, which is unfortunate.

Shalhoub, though, is still great, and his dry, anguished weirdness is still funny, even if it is the same shtick he's always done.

If you're expecting more than an overlong episode of the series then you'll be disappointed, but if you just want to see one more episode of Monk, this is worthwhile.