The Jane Mysteries: A Deadly Prescription

Much like the first film in this series, it is entertaining for (probably) unintended reasons.

The acting is occasionally bad in the way you typically think of bad acting...but more often bad in the overacting sense. Especially the actor playing the teenager falsely accused of murder. But even beyond him...it's like a high school theater production.

The script is also pretty shoddy. Credit where due, Hallmark mysteries tend to be pretty well written. I feel like they're the best source for modern cozy mysteries. The main issue with this one was that it was both confusing and at times uninspired.

A misguided but desperate son tries to rob a pharmacy at gunpoint in order to get prescription medication for his very ill mother. Ryan, was under age and railroaded into confessing to a murder he didn't commit in the police station without an adult guardian present.

Ryan is up for parole and his mother gets a note indicating someone knows what happened, with the implication that it isn't Ryan.

Jane gets her nose bent out of shape at a performance when John asks her to drinks but then bails with hardly a text message at the beginning of the film. The fact that the police may have used an illegal procedure to get a confession out of Ryan puts a further wedge between them.

This creates a bit of an awkward scenario as Jane does a lot of this investigating on her own without John and this puts her in danger more than once with the real killer is still at large.

The tenacious Jane is not deterred and determined to solve this one on her own and help the innocent Ryan. The conflict between John and Jane was hard to watch as he was sure these particular cops were innocent as he went to academy with them.

I like the "righting wrongs" foundation conceptually and the source material, books by K. K. Beck, is wonderful. I am hoping this is a hallmark mystery series that is going to get better and better. I am also hoping that the romantic aspect gets ironed out because I can see the potential in the two leads. This case was pretty twisty and I enjoyed watching it unweave.

The plot and action seem to lurch along and jump suddenly to the next plot point without adequately taking the viewer along with the characters. The acting is quite hammy at points and can be a great cause for humor, but that is probably not what the cast, director, or producers intend. These movies compare poorly to other Hallmark mystery movies like the Aurora Teagarden movies that these seem to want to emulate. We were greatly disappointed from that standpoint as we have been great fans of those and other Hallmark mystery movie series. We watched the first one and were hopeful that the second one would improve the grounding in some sort of credible reality, but we were sorely disappointed.

If you already like Hallmark movies, then you'll probably like this one. For the rest of us it's a big no. The story is predictable. The acting is hammy but fine. It's not a bad movie per se, it's just a movie that knows its audience and I'm not it.

Let's face it, this is for old cat-ladies who are easily entertained. I'm not knocking it. Jodie Sweetin, get your payday on, girl, you earned it. But to those who may want a little bit of critique: Maybe a little bit of subtlety wouldn't be a bad thing. I know you need to play up the emotions, but dial it back just a tiny bit so it's believable. Also, there is no mystery in this mystery. I get why it's simplistic but it's very predictable.