Movie Review: The Cases of Mystery Lane

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Laughs, good mystery and characters

Cons: A few things didn’t quite work for me, but they are minor

The Bottom Line:

PI in training

Solves murder at wife’s office

With plenty of laughs

“Who Takes a Seven Dollar Bribe?”

When I started seeing previews for The Cases of Mystery Lane, a new Hallmark mystery movie, I marked the premier on my calendar.  The more I paid attention, the more I started to think this one could prove to be lots of fun.  And I was completely right.

This movie introduces us to Alden and Birdie Case (Paul Campbell and Aimee Garcia).  Birdie is a lawyer, working in the Boston law firm where her mother (Jacqueline Samuda) is her boss.  And her mother is driving Birdie to work harder to show she is partner material.  Meanwhile, Alden is taking a night school class to become a PI, something he is keeping secret from Birdie.  Not that they he is the only one keeping a secret in their marriage.  Yes, they are drifting apart.

Alden’s latest assignment for his class is to follow someone, and he chooses Kyle, one of Birdie’s co-workers that she seems too close to.  When Kyle makes a stop by the office and then runs out, Alden goes in to investigate.  That’s when he finds the body of one of the partners just before the police show up.

The police rule the death a suicide, but it doesn’t sit right with Alden and Birdie.  Reluctantly, Birdie starts helping Alden investigate.  Will they figure out what really happened?

Obviously, this is a familiar set up for a mystery story, at least the proving someone was murdered instead of a suicide.  But the movie keeps the pace moving and it isn’t long before Alden and Birdie are tracking down some real leads even though the victim doesn’t seem to have any enemies.  I’m not sure I completely buy the killer.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, I get the motive, so I’ll let that go.

And there was one thing introduced early on that was dropped.  I hope it comes back in a later movie.

I did find it interesting that the set up felt similar to Hallmark’s Nikki and Nora: Sister Sleuths, which I actually finally watched a couple of weeks ago even though it premiered last fall.  Granted, I read lots of books with similar set ups and themes, but the fact that Hallmark introduced two potential franchises that are so similar in six months or so was interesting to me.

I don’t remember Hallmark attempting to do a comedic mystery movie before, or a comedy movie in general.  Oh, there are been a few laughs in the movies I’ve watched, but this was definitely intended as a comedy.  And, for the most part, it worked.  Yes, they tried a little too hard at times.  Overall, there were lots of great lines that had me laughing as I watched.

The character arcs were a little predictable, but I didn’t mind that much since I was happy with where things ended.  The actors all do a good job of bringing their characters to life.

Yes, the movie does have a little bit of the standard Hallmark cheese, but it is kept to a minimum.  For the most part, I was able to ignore it and get lost in the story and laughs.

From the way this movie ends, everyone is clearly hoping this becomes a new movie franchise for Hallmark.  I’m right there with them since I really enjoyed The Cases of Mystery Lane.