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MURDER MYSTERY
June 14, 2019  | By David Bianculli

Netflix, 3:00 a.m. ET

 

MOVIE PREMIERE: Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler star in Sandler’s latest made-for-Netflix movie comedy, and this is by far his best concept yet. Not for the movie, but for the deal he gets from Netflix: For Murder Mystery, he concocts a plot that allows he and his cast members to go to Monte Carlo and film on a yacht, with he and Aniston playing American vacationers invited to a private gathering hosted by a snooty tycoon (Terence Stamp), who isn’t so much the life of the party as the death of it. This movie’s co-stars include Quantum of Solace “Bond girl” Gemma Arterton as a movie star, and Deadpool 2 co-star Shioli Kutsana as the tycoon’s much younger significant other. (You get the feeling Sandler casts his Netflix films after bingeing on action movies.) James Vanderbilt, who wrote the screenplay, has written some action movies himself, including Zodiac and White House Down. There aren’t many solid laughs here, though, and that might explain why. So might the idea that the paid vacation to Monte Carlo might have taken more energy and focus than the filmmaking.

 
 
 
 
 
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