The Jane Mysteries: Too Much to Lose

While I have actually never watched a single movie in "The Jane Mysteries" franchise, I had to start somewhere, I suppose. And since I had the opportunity to watch the 2024 movie "The Jane Mysteries: Too Much to Lose" here in 2025, I opted to start here.

Writers K. K. Beck and Neale Kimmel put together a fair enough script, I mean for a mystery such as this was. This is not my go-to genre of movies, so I don't watch a lot of them. But I found the narrative in the movie to be okay for what it turned out to be.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with leading actress Jodie Sweetin, and I actually don't think I've seen her since the "Full House" series was on TV. The acting performances in "The Jane Mysteries: Too Much to Lose" were good.

A movie such as "The Jane Mysteries: Too Much to Lose" hardly is one you will watch more than once, as the script just doesn't have the contents or layers to support more than a single viewing. And I can't claim that I am in any particular hurry to track down the other movies in the franchise. Sure, I will watch them, if given the chance, but I am not actively going to be tracking them down.

My rating of director Marco Deufemia's 2024 mystery "The Jane Mysteries: Too Much to Lose" lands on a five out of ten stars.

We started this movie because it had a good rating. We were so disappointed that we had to stop watching. Every aspect of the story was not believable. A journalist with an open case going to an amateur who only handles cold cases? It was unbelievable and clunky. No one behaved as if they had an IQ larger than their shoe size. This entry was not better in any way than the previous entries. We only watched those because my partner saw this one had a good rating and is the type of fellow who has to watch the entire series. The previous movies were not stellar but we looked forward to this one. We were misled. They are all the same level. It they are your cup of tea, you will tolerate this one. To us, these are sub par.

Surprisingly, I liked the peppy ukulele and the idea of a fundraiser for a children's hospital. This is the fourth Jane Mystery with the righting wrongs foundation and this time a reporter fakes an interview with Jane to convince her to look for her missing reporter mentor.

The reporter has been missing for two days and she recently won a payout from a popular game show. Irene March is a hard hitting reporter who hasn't been very kind to the police...and they don't seem to be taking her disappearance very seriously.

In comes Jane and team who turn up her laptop and take care of her bird, while they look for the missing Irene. Unfortunately, she turns up dead...but they remain on the case to find out who the murder is.

Not as many disguises in this one but still lots of fun clothing. I think I liked the Poe episode better, but I'm still willing to see where this mystery series is going and I am still hoping for a romance between Jane and John.

I really wanted to give this series a try so watched all four. This is definitely the best of the bunch but it's still pretty bad. The acting from the leads is okay and I do appreciate the evolving romantic relationship. They still don't exude the chemistry of the Curious Caterer duo, for example, but it's passable. The story in this movie is a bit unrealistic. The purpose of the foundation is cold cases where they believe justice was unserved. Why then would they take a case that was never a case - so there's no unserved justice, nor is it cold? As for the case itself, the password to crack everything was so obvious I knew it in the first 15 minutes. And yet the lead took until the end? But she's so smart she can solve numerous cases? I did appreciate the detective being called out by his superior for interfering in another department's case. For this movie, and the series overall, all the in your face social issues is a bit much. Lastly, and this is super picky, but can we talk about wardrobe? First, let's get the male lead shirts in his actual size - this size smaller thing is getting old. And the female lead dresses like a color blind child most the time. If she's a sophisticated lounge singer from Europe she would definitely own a better wardrobe. The only good costumes are when she's performing. If you want good cozy mysteries, stick with the other Hallmark offerings-Curious Caterer, Aurora Teagarden, Mystery 101, Hailey Dean.