The Thursday Murder Club
Firing at the lowest common denominator on all cylinders, Chris Columbus taps into the cosy world of the pensioner-solving whodunnit.
And then there were four: Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan and Celia Imrie
Photo courtesy of Netflix.
With Christmas cards already on sale in Tesco, it seems that panto has also arrived early. And the first few moments of Netflix’s adaptation of Richard Osman’s publishing phenomenon do not bode well. Besides Thomas Newman’s meddlesome score, there are amdram down-market accents from Pierce Brosnan and David Tennant that give the feel of a charity sketch pitting James Bond against Doctor Who. Thank Heavens, then, for the appearance of The Queen – aka Dame Helen Mirren – and Gandhi, although Ben Kingsley’s attempts at deadpan humour are on a par with Liam Neeson’s in The Naked Gun. Somehow, the jokes just don’t fall out of Sir Ben’s mouth the way that they were designed. One pines for a cameo from Dame Maggie or Sir John (Gielgud) to show the way.
The eponymous guild of the Grand Guignol is made up of three residents of the retirement home Coopers Chase, namely former MI6 bigwig Elizabeth Best (Dame Helen), retired psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif (Sir Ben) and Ron Ritchie (Bond), a one-time trade unionist. If anything, Brosnan seems to be playing against the role assigned him here, charging around like a man half his age while displaying an envious set of dazzling gnashers. These dynamos just don’t look like they belong in an old people’s home, let alone one as well appointed as this. Be that as it may, the TMC has deserted the Scrabble© society for a more stimulating collaboration in which they scheme to solve cold murder cases. They’re currently working on the open-and-shut murder of Angela Hughes, who was apparently stabbed to death before being hurled from a tall window by a masked intruder. There was a lot of blood at the scene, but enough for her to have died at the time? Luckily for the TMC, a new tenant arrives in the nick of, being a former nurse in search of new friends. She, one Joyce Meadowcroft (Celia Imrie), with all her medical knowledge, neatly completes the quartet and so the club zeroes in on a local police officer, Donna De Freitas (Naomi Ackie), who may be able to provide them with some inside help…
Richard Osman, the erudite author of the original novel, certainly put in his research and dotted all his i’s, an effort that has bled into Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote’s screenplay. The fault is in the direction. Chris Columbus, known for his knockabout comedies Home Alone and Mrs Doubtfire, has aimed for the arched eyebrow and the raised voice of drawing room farce, reducing many of the characters to caricatures. One prayed for a note of Alan Bennett to descend, to inject a dose of acerbic reality. So, when one elderly resident, overhearing, twitters, “I’d welcome a burglar... Nice to have a visitor,” it takes the drama down a peg.
Not that The Thursday Murder Club is not without its moments. There are several genuine laughs, usually incidental ones, but they do keep up the comic momentum. And there are good turns from Naomi Ackie and Henry Lloyd-Hughes, while Jonathan Pryce as Elizabeth Best’s chess-loving, dementia-stricken husband Stephen is not only plausible but heart-breaking. Dame Helen and Celia Imrie are, of course, wonderful, steering an embattled ship through familiar and choppy waters, until the cosy conclusion that we have all been expecting arrives with a final wink.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Celia Imrie, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Tom Ellis, David Tennant, Jonathan Pryce, Paul Freeman, Geoff Bell, Ingrid Oliver, Joseph Marcell, Ruth Sheen, Richard E. Grant.
Dir Chris Columbus, Pro Jennifer Todd and Chris Columbus, Screenplay Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote, from the novel by Richard Osman, Ph Don Burgess, Pro Des James Merifield, Ed Dan Zimmerman, Music Thomas Newman, Costumes Joanna Johnston, Dialect coach Sam Lilja.
Jennifer Todd Pictures/Maiden Voyage/Amblin Entertainment-Netflix.
117 mins. UK/USA. 2025. UK & US Rel: 28 August 2025. Cert. 12A.
