A Deadly Invitation

I think the script was written by middle schoolers. The dialogue is terrible. Stupid clues that make no sense eg. The yoga instructor eating with his left hand meant he never went to India. Yes, someone who vacationed in India is taking on all their customs. Plot points and revelations are utterly predictable too. Some had me rolling my eyes. The acting is ridiculously bad-particularly the "actor" that played the detective and the victims sister. He's straight out of some community play and she simpers and clings to her love interest like he's isn't creepy and gross with bad makeup and hair. The female protagonist is okay but has no personality. Don't waste your time.

A bunch of quirky personalities are assembled at an exclusive Mexican location only to realize there may be a killer in their midst. So right away we know this is a NAFTA-knockoff of Agatha Christie; and it's more or less what you'd expect. The cast is charming and the movie maintains an affable darkly-comedic tone. There are two major flaws. First the movie extols the viewer to follow along and solve the mystery; but it doesn't provide enough information and the solution relies on flashback exposition dumps. Second it spends far too little time setting up the mystery and potential red herrings; and far too much time on explicating the resolution. Overall reasonably enjoyable but not as good as it could or should have been.

This Mexican murder mystery opens with a variety of people being invited to the home of Olivia Uriarte. They include Olivia's sister Agatha, who runs her own true crime podcast; Olivia's ex-husband and other people she knows. When they arrive they are assigned specific rooms but there is no immediate sign of their host. She meets them later aboard a boat. Once together she tells them how each of them has a motive to kill somebody in the group. In the morning Olivia is found dead. To complicate matters at the time the boat is positioned where two police jurisdictions meet. While it is decided who should investigate the guests stay in the house and a junior police officer along with Agatha start asking questions and exposing secrets.

I thought this will was okay; not terrible but not great either. The mystery is intriguing enough and there are some decent twists but there is also far too much standing around talking. I know some viewers had a problem with the main investigator being an amateur rather than the police officer but that has been a genre staple for about as long as there have been murder mystery stories. Inevitably there are quite a few clichés but the final resolution worked for me and felt somewhat original. The acting is decent enough and the location used is impressive. Overall It is distinctly sub-Christie but is okay if you like the genre and fancy watching something set somewhere more exotic than the typical English village.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.

I know it usually called Murder Mystery - so no pun intended as always if you will. That said, you have to have a special humor and a vested interest in the genre - that is crime movies but also the whodunnit aspect of it all. Are you interested? Do you like it when you can keep guessing? Not that this movie is anywhere close to the greats (that includes the recent Daniel Craig movies with Glass Onion and so many others).

The acting is ok, the movie itself knows what it wants to tell - though the pacing could be better I reckon. We do have some flaws and some inconsistencies to overcome. Nothing too major ... but I also reckon many probably will know where this is heading, before it ends up there ... still it is fun and what more could you ask of a movie?

Booriiiinggg. It is no need to comment too much. I finished 15 minutes and I can say enough fake agatha Christie stories please! This is not convincing. I felt lots of vibes from this movie. Everybody does something very suspicious and also from the beginning in podcast part, she says 'if you look at details, you can solve' and you try to not miss anything and this is really boring. Every scenes are so tiring! I didn't like it. I can say that. I think for this genre, every thing has been said and no new anymore. My words finished here. It was in my list and I think I will not finish the movie. Because it didn't capture me.