Invitación a un asesinato

I know it usually called Murder Mystery - so no pun intended as always if you will. That said, you have to have a special humor and a vested interest in the genre - that is crime movies but also the whodunnit aspect of it all. Are you interested? Do you like it when you can keep guessing? Not that this movie is anywhere close to the greats (that includes the recent Daniel Craig movies with Glass Onion and so many others).

The acting is ok, the movie itself knows what it wants to tell - though the pacing could be better I reckon. We do have some flaws and some inconsistencies to overcome. Nothing too major ... but I also reckon many probably will know where this is heading, before it ends up there ... still it is fun and what more could you ask of a movie?

I think the script was written by middle schoolers. The dialogue is terrible. Stupid clues that make no sense eg. The yoga instructor eating with his left hand meant he never went to India. Yes, someone who vacationed in India is taking on all their customs. Plot points and revelations are utterly predictable too. Some had me rolling my eyes. The acting is ridiculously bad-particularly the "actor" that played the detective and the victims sister. He's straight out of some community play and she simpers and clings to her love interest like he's isn't creepy and gross with bad makeup and hair. The female protagonist is okay but has no personality. Don't waste your time.

This Mexican murder mystery opens with a variety of people being invited to the home of Olivia Uriarte. They include Olivia's sister Agatha, who runs her own true crime podcast; Olivia's ex-husband and other people she knows. When they arrive they are assigned specific rooms but there is no immediate sign of their host. She meets them later aboard a boat. Once together she tells them how each of them has a motive to kill somebody in the group. In the morning Olivia is found dead. To complicate matters at the time the boat is positioned where two police jurisdictions meet. While it is decided who should investigate the guests stay in the house and a junior police officer along with Agatha start asking questions and exposing secrets.

I thought this will was okay; not terrible but not great either. The mystery is intriguing enough and there are some decent twists but there is also far too much standing around talking. I know some viewers had a problem with the main investigator being an amateur rather than the police officer but that has been a genre staple for about as long as there have been murder mystery stories. Inevitably there are quite a few clichés but the final resolution worked for me and felt somewhat original. The acting is decent enough and the location used is impressive. Overall It is distinctly sub-Christie but is okay if you like the genre and fancy watching something set somewhere more exotic than the typical English village.

These comments are based on watching the film in Spanish with English subtitles.

Agatha gets invited to join her sister Olivia's yacht party along with several other elite people. Agatha is a crime enthusiast and runs her own podcast. On the yacht, Olivia reveals the one of her guest won't make it back to the shore and that they will have contemplate their lives up until then as that boat ride could be their last. As they are woken up to a thud leading to a dead Olivia in the high seas, it is upto Agatha to solve the mystery and catch the culprit. How she does that forms rest of the story.

The film gets derailed once the on screen death happens and it barely gives enough to buy into the mystery. Since the whole reveal was about delivering the what the flower stood for, let me try to put forth my analogy in those terms..

1. Love = The makers feel the bunch of characters they have are enough to pull off this story. But there is literal lack of bonding between then especially Agatha and Olivia, who are sisters while there is a mention of loss of a loved one that got them distant but, the death of Olivia barely gets any emotion out of Agatha who at best is an amateur crime enthusiast solving the mystery in an hackneyed manner. There is enough love for the genre but nothing transcends onto the screen.

2. Justice = The whole reveal has this as a major aim i.e. Get justice to the deserving. Sadly, the writing denies it as the reveal itself is far from convicinving and the way it is narrated, just complicates it further when seen from a broad perspective, the crime was pretty much over simplified as it is and so were the main suspects.

3. Forgiveness = It is a bit hard to but as an audience, will have to forgive the makers for a bland product. For all the talk about able to forgive and move on, among the characters, it comes way too late and hardly has any impact.

4. Freedom = the film ended and the instant feeling I got was, well Freedom. Not that I kept comparing it with the recent murder mystery films including the Knives Out, but the weak writing made this a tiresome experience, enough to feel free once the film ended. Also, there was no need to show the police as so dummies, glad they were free to from this case in the end.

I wasn't going to see this movie because I thought it was going to be about divas on a yacht, sex and drugs or something like that. The truth is that I found it very entertaining and different. The story may be somewhat cliché, yes, we already know it, but this one has very unexpected and original twists until the very end, and it is very comfortable to watch, with great landscapes and photography of Mexico, and some good actors, not all. Regina Blandón and Maribel Verdú are the stars!

The reactions of this funny group of friends after a dramatic situation could have been more real, although that gives it that touch of parody and eccentricity, that's what it's all about.

They also could have used more and better humor, since the jokes are somewhat bland.

It's like watching a long episode of the English series 'DEATH IN PARADISE', which I love. Even the movie poster!

Much better than I expected, and I think the rating is too low, this movie it's sarcasm, parody, and adventure with that good feeling of mistery to be solved on the beach and vacation atmosphere that we all like.

I definitely recommend it, very refreshing and original, just to have a good and chill time. And with a totally unexpected ending.