Pros: Another intriguing mystery
Cons: Usual Hallmark cheese
The Bottom Line:
Cellar hides body
Sets Jenn on trail of killer
Light, enjoyable
“When Did Family Dinner Become Murder 101?”
Who would have ever thought that bargain hunting could be so
deadly? Guilty Until Proven Innocent is now the fifth Garage Sale Mystery
starring Lori Loughlin as garage sale expert Jennifer Shannon, and it’s a fun
movie.
Jennifer, along with her best friend Dani (Sarah Strange),
owns Rags to Riches, where they sell what they find at yard sales to make
money. At least hopefully make some
money. Right now, the shop has been
struggling financially, but they just need a couple of high value items to turn
things around.
Those items could come from Jennifer’s college friend Sandra
(Kirsten Robek) who shows up offering the inventory of her store located about
twenty minutes away. Sandra is moving
out of the area to live with her current fiancée and doesn’t want to take
things with her, so she is willing to take a percentage of anything they sell
as her payment. That includes the items
in the barn on her farm, but while Jennifer is exploring, she discovers the
body of Sandra’s former fiancée Michael in a hidden cellar. Michael vanished two years ago, only leaving
behind a note that he had found someone else.
Now the police are looking into the murder and are certain that Sandra
is the killer. Can Jennifer find the
truth and free her friend?
Unlike many of the books I read, Jennifer is a married woman
with two kids. And now, with the fifth
movie in the series, recasting for the supporting members of the Shannon family
is now complete. After being written out
of the previous movie, her teenage son Logan is back, but this time played by
Connor Stanhope. While the new actor did
a fine job, I missed the old actor and the chemistry he had with Lori as her
son. Then again, it might have helped if
Logan and Jennifer had more scenes together; Logan did have a sub-plot but he
was mostly on his own for it.
Fortunately, Steve Bacic as husband Jason and Eva Bourne as older daughter
Hannah are back, although there is no mention of Hannah’s love life at all,
which was a pretty major sub-plot in the previous movie.
Of course, the acting overall continues to be good but not
great. There is that certain level of
cheese in the writing that spills over into the acting in these movies, but I’m
okay with that. Know what you are
getting into before you sit down, and you’ll be fine.
The mystery itself is intriguing. I did figure out where things were going a
little early, but watching how Jennifer actually pieced my hunch together with
solid evidence was still entertaining.
We get two sub-plots as well, one involving a job offer for Dani and the
one I mentioned earlier involving Logan and two of his friends. Both left me cheering for the outcome,
although I’m not completely sure I approve of some of Logan’s actions along the
way.
Overall, Guilty Until
Proven Innocent proves to be another entertaining mystery. It’s light, but it’s fun, and if that’s what
you are looking for, you will be richly rewarded.
This movie is part of the Garage Sale Mysteries Collection Two DVD Set.
This movie is part of the Garage Sale Mysteries Collection Two DVD Set.
I enjoy this series. However, in this episode I was stopped cold -- and disappointed -- that the body that is found belongs to a former boyfriend who has been missing for two years! Unless the murderer went to the trouble of arranging to embalm the body, or if the cellar in the barn was freezing (which it wasn't) the corpse would be decayed after two years and the smell would have alerted Jen and her friend, Sandra, long before they stumbled upon the corpse! No one seems to be bothered by this little detail, even ME Tramill. Did I miss something? LOL
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