There are plenty of plot twists and fine performances by supporting characters to go around in this 2007 entry in Hallmark's Jane Doe Mystery series. The result is a very enjoyable 84 minutes.
For those not familiar with the CSA agent whose cover is working for a puzzle company while being wife and mother of the typical American family, the agency intrigue here is much more multi-layered and provides a much broader spectrum of performances than in previous entries. Joe Penny, Scott Paulin, Erin Gray, Shashawnee Hall, Caroline WIlliams, and Steve Vinovich all provide solid characterizations with signature quirks in their roles in the mystery. THe extraordinary performances are added by the late Stanley Kamel whose misuse of a CSA protocol was a highlight of the film for me and Richard Libertini as the old scientist abandoned to live like a crazy man in the desert.
The other interesting part here is the acting of the actor who played the son, relatively undistinguished in the earlier entries. Here, he gets something to do with a subplot on an unconventional and somewhat unethical way of making money and how he handles it in a way that is parents can live with. The fellow playing the corrupt developer is also quite good in giving his own signature to a hackneyed and stereotyped caricature.
Overall, of course, we're talking about a TV murder mystery. The only reason we call it a movie instead of an episode of a TV series is that it happens to be longer than an hour. All that said, How TO FIre Your Boss is more novel, more interesting, and more amusing than most such entries.
