‘The Thursday Murder Club’ Movie Review: Veteran Brits Make Whodunit A Perfectly Pleasant Diversion
Photo from Netflix
From Jeremy Kibler
If you thought The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel needed more murder—or that Netflix’s Murder Mystery movies with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston would have been improved with an older cast of veterans—then welcome to The Thursday Murder Club. As an Amblin/Netflix film adaptation of Richard Osman’s 2019 best-seller (the first of four books with a fifth on the way), this is a fine introduction to a British murder mystery series where cracking cold cases becomes a reality for four pensioners who were alive when Agatha Christie was still spinning yarns. It’s as cozily enjoyable as cuddling up with a hot cup of English Breakfast tea and a stack of crime scene photos could ever be.
The folks at Coopers Chase Retirement Village in the English countryside love it there, especially the members of the so-called Thursday Murder Club. There’s Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), an ex-spy (!); Ron (Pierce Brosnan), a former union activist and twice-divorced flirt; and Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), an ex-psychiatrist and confirmed bachelor. Since their founding member Penny (Susan Kirkby) has been taken to the hospice wing, the very passionate Elizabeth has become the de facto club leader. Sorting through old cold case photos and solving murders in the atrium where their fellow residents might be playing Sudoku or piecing together jigsaw puzzles is a good distraction from Elizabeth’s actual life in particular. She lives in her apartment with chess-playing husband Stephen (Jonathan Pryce), who’s showing signs of dementia.
For some time now, the club has been looking for medical expertise and finally find it in new resident Joyce (Celia Imrie), a widowed retired nurse who’s eager to make new friends and always has a cake in the oven at the ready. Just when the news breaks that greedy Coopers Chase co-owner Ian Ventham (an effectively dickish David Tennant) is planning to displace the residents (“cantankerous old farts”) and redevelop the land into an event space, the club gets involved with a real murder investigation.
Watching the unbeatable Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie be charming sleuths should be a can’t-miss proposition for Jessica Fletcher-like armchair detectives and fans of these actors, but The Thursday Murder Club seems like it’s always on the verge of taking off more than it actually does. Director Chris Columbus (who knows his way around a commercial success, whether it’s Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, or the first two Harry Potters) is in workmanlike mode here but keeps a breezy pace, while writers Katy Brand (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) and Suzanne Heathcote have an advantage in making these talented legends elevate sometimes-lukewarm material. The main mystery is engaging enough, although the first murder case the threesome tackles (before Joyce joins) is more interesting and comes full-circle in the third act.
For a story about crime-obsessed characters in the last act of their lives, it only really treats Elizabeth’s personal life with any gravitas, which Mirren delivers, but at least skips on cheap and easy senior-citizen jokes all around. Likewise, Ron and Ibrahim feel more like undernourished types than fully rounded characters on the page, and yet, Brosnan and Kingsley still bring a warm and amusing camaraderie. That leaves the unflagging Mirren and Imrie to have all the fun with their respective dry and playful comedic delivery. Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice) also holds her own amidst these heavyweights as lady copper PC Donna De Freitas, who seeks more thrilling police work than writing parking citations, and the magnetic Tom Ellis (TV’s Lucifer) gets to play a red herring as Jason, Ron’s celebrity son.
The Thursday Murder Club isn’t always as sharp and cheeky in its writing as it could be, but it’s engagingly acted and a perfectly pleasant diversion. As this little trifle does leave room for improvement, it is nevertheless a reliable delight to see these four spry kids catching murderers. Hopefully, the Thursday Murder Club meets up again.
Rating: 3/5
The Thursday Murder Club is available to stream on Netflix on August 28, 2025.
