After the atrocity we dealt with yesterday, I’m in the mood to push my luck, much like a naïve man who just survived a shootout and is now under the impression that nothing can kill him. As such, knowing that even the depths of Happy Madison rarely reach the utter revulsion of Freelance, I’ll be spending today and tomorrow looking at the four HM releases that made it to Netflix.
We’re starting off on a properly optimistic note because, while the first Murder Mystery was far from impressive (or even being all that good), I can see hope for improvements for a sequel. Adam Sandler was a relative latecomer into the production of the first one, which wound up making the larger product feel less focused than it could have been. But now that writer James Vanderbilt can account for his involvement from the base upwards, ditto new director Jeremy Garelick, they might be able to better accommodate both his persona within the film and his tendency to ad-lib his way through whatever script he’s handed.
And honestly, that’s exactly what we get here. Sandler and Jennifer Aniston still have solid chemistry together, and their general ‘we seem to have wandered into a murder mystery movie’ vibe is given more space to work the room in each scene. Even though Sandler is sliding back into the power fantasy side of his stock persona, like with the briefcase-swinging van chase, he’s able to sell it as a unprepared guy fighting for his life as best he can. It helps that the direction and camera work for that scene is good as well.
As for the titular Mystery, while it doesn’t lean as hard into the parlour-room clichés like the original did, it instead focuses more on the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ position of the leads, with them trying to fix a ransom situation while being framed by the media as the ones who kidnapped the returning Maharajah. It’s fairly predictable as such things go, but credit to the performers and Vanderbilt’s scripting for making each step reasonably entertaining. There’s even some decent comedic set pieces, like a Clue-esque sequence where the leads have to keep hiding suspects in their bedroom, or a car crash right out of a Scary Movie finale.
Don’t get me wrong, this is still the kind of disposable but serviceable fluff that Netflix tends to specialise in, to the point where saying that this is an improvement over the original isn’t that much of an achievement. But as something to just throw on for some quick and easy giggles, it’s a viable option, since even the weaker moments here are quite painless as Happy Madison features go, and it’s consistent in its pleasant amusement.
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