“The Thursday Murder Club” (2025) adapts the first 2020 installment in Richard Osman’s four crime novel series with a fifth expected to be released next month, “The Impossible Fortune” (2025). The Cooper’s Chase, a retirement village located in Kent in South East England, offers a variety of activities, which includes the titular club that investigates cold cases. Three pensioners find a fourth member with medical expertise just in the nick of time as the bodies pile up in a series of homicides related to their home, which is in danger of being sold. Will they be able to solve the murders and save their home? This star-studded cast should charm most home viewers and is finally entertainment featuring older adults without insulting their intelligence.
If you do not mind a review from someone unfamiliar with the book series, please read on. Elizabeth Best (Helen Mirren) is the de facto leader of the team and the unofficial protagonist of “The Thursday Murder Club.” She is focused and cool under pressure even as her husband, Stephen (Jonathan Pryce), is beginning to wane with dementia progressing. Ron Ritchie (Pierce Brosnan) is a dashing former trade unionist whose son, Jason “The Hammer” (Tom Ellis), is a B list celebrity running on the fumes of his fading glory days as a boxer. Brosnan is as hot as always with costume designer Joanna Johnston looking for any excuse to style him so an upside-down triangle of his chest is exposed. Joyce Meadowcraft (Celia Imrie) is the recent recruit with medical expertise as a former nurse and recent widow whose busy daughter, Joanna (Ingrid Oliver, the author’s wife), is brilliant in the finance world. Joyce is thrilled at the prospect of joining the club as if Tony Stark invited Spider-Man to join the Avengers. Ibrahim Arif (Ben Kingsley) is a buttoned up “confirmed bachelor” who favors three-piece suits and is a former psychiatrist. Kingsley is criminally underutilized. Eventually the film pushes the cast behind Mirren striking out to solve the crime. Every member of the group gets a special necklace.
Despite the volume of characters and ample threads without loose ends because they are too busy being gathered and tied into a nice bow, “The Thursday Murder Club” moves briskly without being confusing. Whodunnits often throw so much information at the wall that the resulting solution feels so contrived that it is impossible for anyone except the writer to solve it. Cowriters Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote are experts at linking every scene, so all the information is clearly laid out and the transitions make sense. If they had consulted on “Honey Don’t!” (2025), they may have been scandalized, but they could have helped. Their motto could be, “Leave no viewer behind.” There was unmined tension around Elizabeth hiding information from the team and doing things on her own, but it is nice to have a team enjoy each other and not fall out so everyone, sign a waiver. As the body count ramps up, the story begins to lose some momentum, but it is still vaguely pleasant.
Even people who are not fans of the genre should mind this one because no one cheaped out on the delightful casting, and all the actors are brilliant, but even if they were not, their resume adds texture to the roles. For instance, there are tons of inside jokes about Mirren’s former roles as a detective (“Prime Suspect”), M16 (“Red”) or a regent (“The Queen”).
The writers do add tension about law enforcement not wanting to work with pensioners while the residents do not want to be talked down to and are better at solving crimes than the local professionals. PC Donna de Freitas (Naomi Ackie, who is such a versatile actor) feels a kinship with them because her colleagues underestimate her despite her experience in the Metropolitan Police Service, aka the “Met Police,” whose jurisdiction consists of Greater London. Her boss, DCI Chris Hudson (Daniel Mays), finds it frustrating and tries to put the club in their place, but is ultimately unable to put the genie back in the bottle. The real divide falls along gender lines with law enforcement depicted as the final stronghold of the boys’ club mentality and women officials being treated as servants. Some scenes would not be out of place in “Wicked Little Letters” (2024), which was set a little after World War I.
The list of people putting their home in peril are the owners. Ian Ventham (David Tennant, who practically has a PHD in playing bad guys) is going through a divorce and wants some easy money. Tony Curran (Geoff Bell) opposes Ian because his Aunt Maud (Ruth Sheen) is a resident. Usually Tony does the construction work, but undocumented Polish immigrant, Bogdan (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), is willing to take the job even though he has a soft spot for older people. The third possible owner, Bobby Tanner (Richard E. Grant) is presumed dead, but if Grant is cast in a role, that is extremely unlikely.
“Familiar Touch” (2024) feels like a gritty drama compared to this feel good, escapist crime comedy. Even though Ron is working class, how is he able to afford the same swanky digs as everyone else? The Granthams from “Downton Abbey” would call this place home. It is a splendid fantasy of independent living without a single employee in sight where dementia patients can be left alone without worry while their caretakers can live independent lives far away for huge swaths of time without the ailing person wandering. It is an image of a cohesive community of all classes, races (sort of since all the color stays in the police department) and nationalities (Ibrahim has family outside of the country) living in harmony in the swankiest setup. When did the UK become the promised land, and if this image is accurate, how can everyone sign up and jump the Pond? “The Father” (2021) would probably strongly protest this film as unrealistic but is not any film with amateur sleuths? This movie is conflict-free without inadvertently stepping on any land mines. Even the tragedy of human trafficking is handled with a light touch. It is like the anti- “The Home” (2025) or “The Rule of Jenny Pen” (2024).
Director Chris Columbus, who should be a recognizable name in film for directing the “Home Alone” franchise, “Mrs. Doubtfire” (1993), which Brosnan also appeared in, “Nine Months” (1995) and “Stepmom” (1998), keeps the soon-to-be streaming sensation looking pleasant and homey even though people are dropping like flies. The opening scene, which is set in 1973, is shot in black and white and makes the streets seem as if Jack the Ripper was as likely to appear. It is as close as Columbus allows himself to shoot a mystery in its accustomed vein. Everything else is sunshine and flowers except for one heavy handed fog filled nighttime lone stroll.
“The Thursday Murder Club” is comfort food entertainment that soothes, not stirs. Anglophiles should make room on their schedule for this bloodless crime comedy. Be prepared that if you sign up now, you’re probably signing up to a budding streaming franchise of adaptations of “The Man Who Died Twice” (2021), “The Bullet That Missed” (2022) and “The Last Devil to Die” (2024).
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Why do Grant’s hands look like they are covered in blood? Surely you do not expect me to believe that he is cutting so many roses that the thorns have created streams of them.
