Movie Review: Inheritance Lost - The Jane Mysteries

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Great new characters in an engaging mystery

Cons: Some of Jane’s actions are very questionable

The Bottom Line:

Fifteen-year-old case

Jane honors late uncle’s wish

Great start to franchise

“I’m Just Trying to Help.”

Being a fan of Full House and Fuller House (although I still need to watch the final season of that show), I was thrilled to see Jodie Sweetin start her own mystery franchise on the Hallmark Channel.  Inheritance Lost, the first Jane Mystery, proved to be a lot of fun.

Jane da Silva (Jodie Sweetin) is living in Paris and working as a singer until she gets word that her uncle has passed away.  She returns to Baltimore to be with her aunt Sadie (Paris Jefferson), and discovers that her uncle has named her as the head of his retirement project – a foundation that looks into old cases for those who need help and answers.

While Jane is still trying to figure out what to do about this, she meets a young client.  Lia (Danielle Smith) is a teen who wants to find out what happened to her mother who died fifteen years ago.  Officially, it was ruled a suicide, but Lia isn’t satisfied with that.  Then there’s the mystery of the inheritance that Lia’s mother had gotten not too long before she died.  With the help of homicide detective John Cameron (Stephen Huszar), can Jane figure out what happened?

This was a solid mystery to start the franchise.  I was very interested in what Jane was uncovering.  She is very green as an investigator, and made some very rookie mistakes.  Some might fault her for this, but I’m willing to let it slide here since she seemed to recognize the mistakes after she’d made them.  Hopefully, this is the kind of thing she will learn from so we won’t see as much of it going forward.  Anyway, Jane does put the pieces together at the end and reach a satisfying solution.

One aspect that was very fun is that Aunt Sadie also used to be a performer.  As a result, she has a huge collection of costumes that Jane uses at various times in the investigation.  I loved seeing what she’d pop up in next.

We also got a few snippets of Jodie Sweetin singing.  She’s not known for her singing, but she definitely should be.  Hope we see more of that in the future as well.

For a Hallmark movie, this film was refreshingly light on cheese.  Jodie leads things with a strong presence, and the writing is good, giving the actors quite a bit to work with.  I recognized Stephen Huszar from another Hallmark mystery franchise, one I struggled to watch.  He was great here, proving that the writing can often have a lot to do with how the actors come across.

I definitely hope that this is the start of a long running mystery franchise for Hallmark.  Inheritance Lost was a good introduction to characters I already love and can’t wait to see again.