Movie Review: Murder at Moseby - The Jane Mysteries

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Interesting mystery; the singing

Cons: Undercover made little sense; high dose of low budget cheese

The Bottom Line:

Fifteen-year-old case

Was there even a victim?

Uneven movie

“Looking at That Photo, I Know I’m Not Crazy, Right?” “Well, It’s Hard to Say.  It Has Been a Few Years Since I’ve Seen You.”

I was excited to see that Hallmark was bringing another movie that originally premiered on Hallmark+ to cable.  In this case, it’s been nine months since Murder at Moseby, the third Jane Mystery, originally aired.  While there were things I enjoyed, it was just okay overall.

The Jane in this case is Jane Da Silva as played by Jodie Sweetin.  She’s a singer who has come home to Maryland after the death of her uncle.  She’s started working in his organization to work on open old cases and seek true justice for victims.  Working alongside her are Detective John Cameron (Stephen Huszar) and her aunt Sadie (Paris Jefferson).

In this case, it’s someone from Jane’s past who brings them a case.  Fifteen years ago, Jane was a student a nearby Moseby College.  The night of the first Poe festival at the college is forever imprinted on Jane’s mind since it was the night her mother was killed in a hit and run.

But Jane’s old boyfriend, Anthony (Rainbow Sun Francks) just found an old roll of film.  When he goes to develop it, he finds a picture that brings back a memory of seeing something weird happening in the parking lot during the festival.  Now, looking at the picture, he knows he really saw something, and it looks like a dead body.

With no victim and no suspects, Jane goes undercover at the college in the days leading up to this year’s Poe festival.  Can she figure out what happened all those years ago?

I have so many questions.  Not about the mystery itself, which does reach a logical conclusion.  But, why does Jane need to go undercover?  I suspect it was only to allow her to play dress up, something that is a staple of these movies.  But, why couldn’t she just show up as Jane?  I guess because she was a college dropout, but her performing background seemed like a good thing for what she was teaching.  There are some other things that happened with the undercover part in the second half of the movie that just made me scratch my head.

Then there’s the plot point in the second half of the movie that was so obvious to everyone but the characters.  Why they didn’t think to double check this themselves earlier is beyond me.

This movie has a larger than normal dose of low budget cheese as well.  There are times that the staging and coincidences are bad.  Some of the performances could have been stronger as well.

Yes, I know I’m being very critical.  But there was stuff I enjoyed.  I enjoyed getting a little more about Jane.  I’d forgotten about the story with her mother, and that gets some development here.

These movies always include some music, which is outside the norm for Hallmark mystery movies.  As always, I really did enjoy that as well.

And the mystery was interesting.  Things are explained at the end, although it wasn’t the best solution to a mystery I’ve ever seen.

I’m glad I finally got to watch Murder at Moseby.  I’m hoping that the final (at least for now) Jane Mystery proves to be stronger than this one was.