Recipe for Murder

I saw Recipe for Murder on cable in the UK. For a TV movie this production has excellent acting, dialogue, directing and sound. I'm not someone who gets excited by murder mysteries, especially of the non-nonsense New York tough-guy detective type, but I couldn't turn this off before seeing it to its conclusion. My criticism of the script is that the cast seems to be 80-90% male, with a lot of testosterone flying around in the investigation interviews. Plus perhaps too many New York accents -- there ARE people in NYC who don't have strong Brooklyn/Bronx accents but they don't show up in this film. I thought the lighting was good; interesting that the director was also the cinematographer.

New York City's chief medical examiner is informed by the police that his movie star god-daughter's body has been found in a crashed car, a possible suicide. Her godfather, not satisfied that her death was an either an accident or a suicide refuses to sign off on her death certificate and begins his own investigation.

Yes, I agree with some of the other comments made. The writing could have been better. The acting was not A-list. But believe me I have seen movies that were far, far worse than this one.

Some pluses: 1) There were several suspects with possible motives and though I have a fairly good record of picking out the villain I didn't see this one until the very end. 2) Some may laugh at me but it was so refreshing to watch a movie that wasn't full of sex. I get tired of having to switch channels. 3) I liked the lead actor Gary Basaraba,(m.e./godfather)but his character should have been more forceful, after all his beloved god-daughter had just been killed! Instead he was a bit too much of a marshmallow. The director should have told him to be more forceful but obviously didn't. 4) Most of the other actors were competent although a couple of the actors didn't reach the high standards set by the majority of the cast. 5) I though the actress who played the godfather's girlfriend was very natural, pity her part wasn't larger. And 6) as I said it was a pleasant little movie - and I stuck with it and didn't change the channel.

Even for a TV movie this one should have been much better. The story is fair about a car wreck that kills a young actress who happens to be the New York City medical examiner's goddaughter. He suspects that the wreck was no accident. Just as in Roman times when poisoned mushrooms were called the "food of the gods" by palace conspirators so in "Recipe for Murder" mushrooms are suspected by the examiner to be the murder weapon. There are a few twists and turns along the way but by in large mainly a routine mystery yarn. What really hurts is the poor acting, especially by the lead Gary Basaraba whose histrionics distract from the cold hard facts of the case. He is not completely to blame. The writer put far too many words into his mouth. His parables become tiresome after awhile as does his fake accent.

The print I watched on television had poor lighting and the color appeared bleached. Otherwise the cinematography was OK for a TV movie.

Not a complete waste of time but with satellite television you should be able to find a much better mystery movie to watch.

One of those jocular TV mystery movies in which the viewer is supposed to be drawn in by the charm of the "detective" and his friends/helpers rather than by the suspense of the crime. Unfortunately, this cast feels like the leads all had the night off and the understudies had to step up. Not really bad performances, but I doubt the director remembered this the week after he finished it.

Not a bad murder mystery, but I guessed the killer within 5 seconds of first seeing them on the screen. I never saw anything the rest of the movie to make me think otherwise. If you really want a hard to guess mystery, look elsewhere. I should add I watch many of these mysteries so I've become pretty good at spotting the plot twists. Writers of these types of shows, rather they know it or not, are often very formulaic. If you really want hard to guess mysteries, try the Poirot series. They have some seriously complicated mysteries there. These were of course written by the best.

Otherwise I thought the acting was fine. The main character was great. With better writing this could have been a series. Too late now.

This movie was made in 2001. Early on you'll see the Manhattan skyline with the World Trade Center.