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
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.
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.
'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".
-
Twelfth Night or What You Will: a 'riotous' late-summer jamboreeThe Week Recommends Robin Belfield's 'carnivalesque' new staging at Shakespeare's Globe is 'joyfully tongue-in-cheek'
-
August 28 editorial cartoonsCartoons Thursday’s political cartoons include Taylor Swift's wedding bells, Donald Trump's objections to mail-in voting, and thoughts and prayers
-
How Israel's 'Legitimisation Cell' is justifying journalist killings in GazaThe Explainer Evidence suggests a secret intelligence unit is portraying Palestinian journalists as Hamas operatives
-
Twelfth Night or What You Will: a 'riotous' late-summer jamboree
The Week Recommends Robin Belfield's 'carnivalesque' new staging at Shakespeare's Globe is 'joyfully tongue-in-cheek'
-
Hostage: Netflix's 'fun, fast and brash potboiler'The Week Recommends Suranne Jones is 'relentlessly defiant' as prime minister Abigail Dalton
-
Music reviews: Chance the Rapper, Cass McCombs, and Molly TuttleFeature "Star Line," "Interior Live Oak," and "So Long Little Miss Sunshine"
-
Film reviews: Eden and Honey Don't!Feature Seekers of a new utopia spiral into savagery and a queer private eye prowls a high-desert town
-
Critics' choice: Three chefs fulfilling their ambitionsFeature Kwame Onwuachi's grand second act, Travis Lett makes a comeback, and Jeff Watson's new Korean restaurant
-
Book reviews: 'The Headache: The Science of a Most Confounding Affliction—and a Search for Relief' and 'Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of "Born to Run"'Feature The search for a headache cure and revisiting Springsteen's 'Born to Run' album on its 50th anniversary
-
Keith McNally's 6 favorite books that have ambitious charactersFeature The London-born restaurateur recommends works by Leo Tolstoy, John le Carré, and more
-
'Mankeeping': Why women are fed upFeature Women no longer want to take on the full emotional and social needs of their partners
