Movie Review: A Fatal Romance - A Matchmaker Mystery

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Strong mystery

Cons: Not much for Nick to do, Hallmark cheese

The Bottom Line:

Romance writer dead

But matchmaker on the case

Enjoyable film

“Are You Using the Show as Cover for a Rogue Murder Investigation?”  “No, I’m…Multitasking.”

I know that Hallmark usually premiers movies on Saturdays and Sundays, but I haven’t seen a mystery movie premier on Saturday since I started watching them.  So I had to double check when I saw that A Fatal Romance, the second Matchmaker Mystery, had been set to premier this last Saturday.  I’m glad I saw that because I enjoyed the movie.

Angie Dove (Danica McKellar) has been invited to moderate a panel at a romance convention being held in town.  No, she hasn’t started writing books of any kind, but she is so well known locally for her matchmaking TV show, she is a natural fit.  This does put her back into contact with Ethan, her ex-boyfriend who has taken over a publishing company from his late mother.  Among his authors are Beatrice Penn (Anne Marie DeLuise), a best-selling author with a huge fan base.

Beatrice is on the panel Angie is moderating, but the panel gets off to a rocky start.  One of the authors never shows, Beatrice and the other author obviously hate each other, and someone from the audience yells at Beatrice.  When Beatrice gets up to read, she seems to be suddenly ill, and the panel comes to an abrupt end.  It’s only later that Angie learns from detective Kyle Cooper (Victor Webster) that Beatrice died and poison is suspected.  When he zeroes in on Ethan as the suspect, Angie jumps in to figure out what really happened.

This movie was filled with suspects and motives, and it kept me guessing until the end.  I was impressed with the way this movie wove those motives and suspects around each other until Angie figured things out.  Naturally, all of our questions were answered by that point.

The movie was so full of plot that there wasn’t much room for the third member of the main character trio, Angie’s dad Nick (Bruce Boxleitner).  He gets a couple of scenes and a sub-plot, but his screen time is very small.  Since, of the main cast, he’s the actor I like the most, I hope they find more to have him do in future movies.

However, I did enjoy watching Angie and Kyle interacting.  We are still getting the slow tease in their romance, and I enjoy watching them deny their feelings for each other.

I also enjoyed watching the bits of Angie’s matchmaking show that were being filmed.  This actually was the strongest sub-plot of the show.

The actors and writers do a good job of keeping the Hallmark cheese to a minimum.  It is there, but if you know to expect it, you can pretty easily ignore it.

If you missed Hallmark’s schedule change, be sure to keep an eye out for A Fatal Romance.  I’m sure they will be reairing it soon, and it is an entertaining murder mystery movie.