Murder Mystery: Aniston,Sandler Attempt To Lift A bad Film

Murder Mystery(Netflix)

Starring Jennifer Aniston, Adam Sandler

Directed  by  Kyle Newacheck

Rating: **(2 stars)

 Cruising  along in this corny-going-on-obnoxious  takeoff on the Agatha Christie  whodunits—there  is even a homage to Christie at  the  film’s end-bend—you get the feeling that the only reason for this  film’s existence, and  the  only reason why we are watching it, is the lead pair.

The very charming Jennifer Aniston and  the gloriously goofy Adam Sandler are priceless as  a  White Trash couple,  social climbers who lie to get entrance into elite circles, with  a penchant  for  clinging on to successful people. They   get themselves  invited   on a luxury cruise by  a billionaire(Luke Evans) whom they meet in  a well-written onflight  sequence(with an airhostess  with an upperlip so stiff it  could give  the  Bertie Wooster’s butler a run for his  money).

There are spells  of  pleasurably scripted  interludes in what’s largely a royal  mess, and none more messed up than the ‘Maharaja’ Vikram on  board  the  ship , played by  Adeel Akhtar. The Maharaja  tries to act  cool and drawls drippy dialectic ditzy  humour. But all we see is a Brown man being subjected to a ridiculous  accent and  attitude.

The  other characters,are all suspect in a  series of murders that happen after  the  family on cruise loses  its patriarch(Terence Stamp) just as he’s about to sign  off all his wealth to his sexy young wife.

Gold diggers, disgruntled relatives, illimitable money and flow of champagne  to  go with  it, cannot take  away from the dreadful feeling we get of a film wasting talented good looking people in  pursuit  of  a script that would do them  justice.

Murder Mystery relies too heavily  on  Aniston and Sandler’s shared chemistry as a desperately wannabe couple thrown into a world on a ship where they don’t belong.

“I think we should leave,” Aniston  suggests  to Sandler at one point when the billionaire  snubs  his family  out of the will.

Seriously, leave before  the lead pair’s charms  wear too thin.