The Thursday Murder Club: 'undemanding teatime crime drama'

Between them, Richard Osman's first four "Thursday Murder Club" novels sold more than ten million copies and sparked a publishing craze for so-called "cosy crime", said Kevin Maher in The Times. Small wonder, then, that Netflix's big-budget adaptation of the first title arrives "with the self-conscious swagger of a ready-made franchise".

Cracking cases

For those who haven't read the books, this well- made film follows the exploits of four pensioners living at Coopers Chase, a posh retirement home in Kent: there's former spy Elizabeth (Helen Mirren); retired psychiatrist Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley); trade union firebrand Ron (Pierce Brosnan); and new arrival Joyce (Celia Imrie), a former nurse. Once a week, they meet in the building's jigsaw room and pool their skills to crack unsolved murder cases.

Meanwhile, a shady property developer played by David Tennant plots to turn Coopers Chase into luxury flats; and when both he and his business partner (Geoff Bell) are found dead in mysterious circumstances, the amateur sleuths are "compelled into undercover and very active duty".

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

'Funny and likeable'

The murder mystery that follows is less a whodunnit than "a half-hearted parody of one", said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph. In the books, Osman's characters occupy a space somewhere "between romanticism and pastiche". This doesn't really translate to film: even this A-list cast can't seem to work out "if they're playing people or spoofs".

There's little suspense to speak of, and the end result is a "thin and perfunctory" movie. It's certainly "undemanding", but that's sort of the point, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. "The Thursday Murder Club" is a "funny and likeable, if slightly bland" film which, as one character remarks, "feels just like a Sunday teatime TV crime drama".