The Thursday Murder Club is based on quite possibly the most successful series of books to have been released in the 2020s. Writer Richard Osman has enraptured the average reader with over 10 million copies sold and four sequels to boot. So what a coup it is that Netflix has secured the rights to a film that seems oddly out of place on their service. If you close your eyes, you could see The Thursday Murder Club making a barn-storming amount of money at an Everyman cinema, followed by record-breaking viewership on ITV in the afternoon of Christmas Day. But alas, straight to Netflix it goes, to a service that neither of my grandparents have ever really got the hang of using.

In this pensioner’s version of an Agatha Christie tale, Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), a retired MI6 agent, is joined in the retirement home’s ‘Thursday Murder Club’ by Ron (Pierce Brosnan), a former union leader, Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), a retired psychologist, and new recruit Joyce (Celia Imrie), a former nurse. When the co-owner of the retirement complex is killed, the club helps the under-appreciated junior police officer Donna De Freitas (Naomi Ackie) with the case before their retirement home is sold off by the other slimy co-owner Ian Ventham (David Tennant).

The casting here is phenomenal; you couldn’t imagine any of the four characters being any other actor. Mirren is better here than I have seen her in a long time. The idea of a former MI6 spy trying to solve past murders in a retirement home is a brilliant idea for a character, and if they wanted, they could have made the film just centred around her. Brosnan is also very well utilised; he has that bravado and charm that, even in his seventies, you can’t help but crack a smile. Richard E. Grant pops up for a little scene, but I feel like he could have been used a little more, as could Ruth Sheen, too, who is always underrated in the supporting roles of her career.

To go along with the elderly feel of this picture, the story moves at an incredibly glacial pace. A tighter, leaner movie with 15 minutes cut could have been a much more engaging story, but that second act just plods along with a finale that isn’t quite as climactic as it thinks it is. This is a film that wears its influences on its sleeve, but the narrative just isn’t as gripping as the films it aspires to be. The script also needed to be a little funnier at times and less reliant on the cliche elderly jokes that have been going on for aeons.

Overall, Netflix have taken yet another iconic murder mystery series and buried it on their service with poor cinematography and a plodding plot. This one is less thrilling Knives Out, and more quiet Jigsaw in.

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