MYSTERY 101: PLAYING DEAD (2019)

If anybody out there is making a list of movies where the opening scene is the worst scene of the movie, then go ahead and add MYSTERY 101: PLAYING DEAD to your list. A small town, off-duty cop is out jogging at 5:23 in the morning when she notices the front door to a drug store has all the glass blown outward across the sidewalk. So, being a genius, she doesn’t call for back-up or even have a weapon and enters the darkened store where she is almost immediately bashed over the head with a baseball bat and left for dead.

After that eye-rolling disaster of an opening scene M101:PD gets things into gear and ends up being a delightful and totally enjoyable film. And a nice step up from the original film. The main characters are already established so more time can be spent on the mystery itself. This time around, our hero, Professor Winslow, is working as a literary advisor for a local playhouse during their production of a murder mystery. So, kinda like how there is always mystery and intrigue around Father Brown, it seems that murder also follows Professor Winslow. Crimes happen and before you can say “One of the greatest loses in human history was that Eric Lynch and Rich Piana never met.”, somebody ends up dead and Proffy Slow and that handsome homicide detective with the hideous jacket are teamed up once again. It’s awesome.

Solid pace, better acting than in the first film, that one dude from that one Christmas movie I reviewed recently, a very pretty town, a good mystery with interesting suspects, a reference to a certain Dashiell Hammett novel (which would explain the Nick and Nora Charles vibes throughout the entire film), more coffee drinking, zero gore, zero nudity, zero cheerleaders.

I doubt that MYSTERY 101: PLAYING DEAD will change your life or anything, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked that the two main characters were more playful this time around. It was cute.

Part 1 - Mystery 101 (2019)
Part 3 - Mystery 101: Words Can Kill (2019)
Part 4 - Mystery 101: Dead Talk (2019)
Part 5 - Mystery 101: An Education in Murder (2020)
Part 6 - Mystery 101: Killer Timing (2021)
Part 7 - Mystery 101: Deadly History (2021)