Metacritic reviews

In writer-director Evan Morgan’s unusual neo-noir The Kid Detective, it’s not just a suspect or a motive that’s a red herring, it’s an entire genre, a strange rug-pull of a movie that starts in the middle of the road before ending up off a cliff, in a way that both works and doesn’t, a fascinating gambit nonetheless.

It’s a thrill to watch a film that so cogently, shrewdly renders its ideas. It’s a case of high concept, adeptly cracked.

Evan Morgan’s sometimes weird, sometimes whimsical thriller delivers a grown-up blend of film-noir tropes and deadpan humor, for a comedy-drama which starts off lighthearted and then deftly darkens.

Both entertainingly old-fashioned and defiantly fresh.

The Kid Detective is an unexpected mix of disparate elements that in the wrong hands could have resulted in lumpy parody but, fortunately, pours out as something smooth, funny, dark and potent.

With its lesser-known cast, The Kid Detective was always going to get lost in the cinematic shuffle, with or without a pandemic closing most theaters. But Morgan and his new muse have concocted a whodunit that could give Hercule Poirot a run for his money in a contest for the year’s best mystery.

At its core, The Kid Detective is also just a plain, entertaining mystery - that has a satisfying conclusion both for the case itself and Abe's journey. Anyone interested in the premise or in Brody's performance would do well with giving The Kid Detective a watch.

It’s a good role for Brody by simultaneously feeding on the typecast nature of him being neurotic Seth Cohen from The O.C. and rejecting it by toning down the sarcasm and replacing it with fatigue.

So, really, what does happen when a kid detective grows up? In Morgan’s hands, something curious, laced with pitch black comedy and a major dose of tragedy, a winking sense of genre, and a stellar performance from Brody.

Laughter and enjoyment is stifled by the constant question of whether we’re allowed to laugh or enjoy anything at all.