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Murder and Cocktails
Cocktails with Nick and Lana
USA 2024
produced by Ron Jackson for 905 Productions
directed by Henry Barrial
starring Jessicah Neufeld, Jason Bernardo, Thurman Dalrymple, Patrick Wolff, Caroline Amiguet, Lucy Boryer, Christopher Botiller, Mike Sears, Ricardo Molina, Jasmine M. Garcia, Brian Lally, Nerissa Tedesco, Alex Kip, and the voices of Jeff Nimoy, Colleen O'Shaughnessey
written by Ron Jackson, music by Archie Thompson
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Lana's (Jessicah Neufeld) a former soap actress currently out of a job,
Nick (Jason Bernardo) a screenwriter between assignments, so they have
already ammassed a bit of debts over the months and a violent but somewhat
dim debt collector (Christopher Botiller) is already after them. So Nick
comes up with a desparate idea, that they live-stream their cocktail
hours, talking about everything and nothing, and while Lana is initially
against it, she soon agrees thinking of the money they can make. To their
disappointment, they have mered a mere handful Dollars after a few days of
being on cam ... and then a murder happens in the apartment next to them,
and the fatal bullet smashes through the wall into their apartment - but
apparently hid so well that the detective on the job (Thurman Dalrymple)
can't find it. Only when they themselves go on a search, they got it in
under 5 minutes - which gives them an idea, to investigate the murder
themselves. Sure, they don't understand the first thing about it, but
after they were so much better in finding the bullet than the detective,
how hard can it be? So their idea is, since the killer probably lives on
their floor, to unit per unit invite the neighbours (Patrick Wolff,
Caroline Amiguet, Lucy Boryer, Mike Sears, Ricardo Molina, Jasmine M.
Garcia, Brian Lally, Nerissa Tedesco, Alex Kip) over for cocktails, to get
them drunk, maybe also stoned, and make the guilty person spill the beans
- live on webcam of course. Problem is, they don't know their neighbours
and are more often than not overpowered by their temperaments, and at the
end of their experiment they come out with nothing at all. So they have
one desperate final idea - a big cocktail party for everyone, including a
murder reveal that they totally have to wing ...
Murder and Cocktails is a murder mystery that's not at
all to be taken seriously, it's pretty much a whodunnit comedy very much
in the vein of similar films of old (think The
Thin Man et al. here), only that it takes the absurdity of the
amateur sleuth concept even one step further while being firmly rooted in
the here and now in terms of direction and plot elements. But what makes
the movie work is on one hand it's humourous approach that always stays
this side of the moronic, on the other its clear love and understanding of
the murder mystery genre, even if not all genre mainstays are taken wholly
seriously (including a rabbitt-out-of-the-hat solution to the mystery).
But all of this, coupled with a very decent ensemble cast, make this a
great watch, not only for whodunnit fans.
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