Audience RatedMini ReviewStreaming MoviesWoke-ish

The Thursday Murder Club

The Thursday Murder Club is a lightweight but charming murder mystery carried almost entirely by its veteran cast’s charisma.
23303
Starring
Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley
Director
Chris Columbus
Rating
PG-13
Genre
Comedy, Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Release date
Aug 28, 2005
Where to watch
Netflix
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Story/Plot/Script
Visuals/Cinematography
Performance
Direction
Non-Wokeness
Rating Summary
It's main quartet of heavyweight performers transform a problematic script into a fun two hour distraction. Not even a fumbled third act is a match for their easy charm and chemistry.

In a quiet retirement village, four spirited seniors—Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron—form the Thursday Murder Club, meeting weekly to dissect unsolved crimes. When a local developer is found dead under suspicious circumstances, the group seizes the chance to investigate a real case. Their amateur sleuthing unearths secrets and stirs up the community.

The Thursday Murder Club REVIEW

The Thursday Murder Club is the mini-muffin of direct-to-streaming murder mysteries. It looks yummy. It smells tasty, but after you've eaten the whole box (don't judge me), you quickly realize that each muffin's fluffiness was air meant to substitute for substance.

Such is Netflix's newest offering. The Thursday Murder Club is a breezy cinematic jaunt that neither demands much of its audience nor gives its audience much worthy of such demands. Instead, it's so much fluff, filled with over 300 combined years of experience and charisma in front of the camera.

Helen Mirren leads a cast of heavyweights that includes the Academy Award-winning Sir Ben Kingsley and her Mobland hubby, Pierce Brosnan. The fact of the matter is that despite a script that peters out in the third act, with its mystery solved more or less by happenstance, The Thursday Murder Club's main quartet of players are having such obvious fun that it's hard not to join them.

The result is a movie that you need not reserve for a special occasion, and will probably end with you scrolling through your phone by its conclusion, but there are far worse things to watch (many of which are on Netflix).

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James Carrick

James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.

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Leave a Review
  1. Sandi Brakebush August 30, 2025 at

    This was very sweet and satisfying movie to watch some of our favorite actors. Pure gold. Plot had turns and twists that made it a pleasing ending.

    Reply
  2. Canoefire September 21, 2025 at

    I avoid woke movies at all cost. However, I found this movie enjoyable. James take on the movie is spot on and the small woke references in the movie didn’t bother me.

    Reply

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Handle all top-level share buttons here first. document.addEventListener('click', async function(e){ var targetEl = e.target && e.target.nodeType === 1 ? e.target : (e.target && e.target.parentElement ? e.target.parentElement : null); var btn = targetEl && targetEl.closest ? targetEl.closest('.wiow-share-btn') : null; if (!btn) return; // Ignore the Audience modal "Rate" button (it also has wiow-share-btn class in your CSS usage) if (btn.hasAttribute('data-wiow-audience-open')) return; var row = btn.closest('[data-wiow-share="1"], .wiow-share-row'); if (!row) return; var platform = btn.getAttribute('data-platform'); // Public top-level controls must work even when AJAX generation or membership-gated data is unavailable. // Options still uses the full image-builder path below. if (platform === 'x' || platform === 'link') { e.preventDefault(); e.stopPropagation(); var quickStatus = row.querySelector('.wiow-share-status'); var quickUrl = btn.getAttribute('data-copy-url') || row.getAttribute('data-share-page') || row.getAttribute('data-post-url') || wiowShareFallbackUrl(row); if (!quickUrl) { if (quickStatus) quickStatus.textContent = 'No share URL available.'; return; } if (platform === 'x') { openPopup(btn.getAttribute('href') || btn.getAttribute('data-wiow-x-intent') || wiowShareXIntentUrl(row)); if (quickStatus) quickStatus.textContent = ''; return; } if (quickStatus) quickStatus.textContent = 'Copying link…'; var copiedQuick = await wiowCopyShareText(quickUrl); var quickLabel = btn.querySelector('.wiow-share-btn__label'); var quickOriginal = quickLabel ? quickLabel.textContent : 'Copy link'; if (copiedQuick) { if (quickStatus) quickStatus.textContent = 'Link copied.'; if (quickLabel) { quickLabel.textContent = 'Copied!'; window.setTimeout(function(){ quickLabel.textContent = quickOriginal || 'Copy link'; }, 1500); } } else { if (quickStatus) quickStatus.textContent = 'Could not copy link.'; } return; } e.preventDefault(); var previewWin = null; if (platform === 'copy') { previewWin = openShareOptionsWindow(); var preloadKind = (row.getAttribute('data-share-kind') || 'critics').trim().toLowerCase(); var preloadHeading = (preloadKind === 'audience' || preloadKind === 'audience-teaser' || preloadKind === 'audience-question') ? 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This prevents two square // outputs or mismatched gallery states in the Share Options window. built = await buildShareImage(row, { force:true }); builtSquare = await buildShareSquareImage(row, built.cycle_image_url || '', built.poster_url || '', { force:true }); if (!built || !built.image_url) { throw new Error('Landscape share build failed.'); } if (!builtSquare || !builtSquare.image_url) { throw new Error('Square share build failed.'); } } else { built = await buildShareImage(row); } var shareUrl = built.share_url; var postUrl = (row.getAttribute('data-post-url') || '').trim() || shareUrl; var postTitle = (row.getAttribute('data-post-title') || '').trim(); if (!postTitle) postTitle = 'this'; var shareKind = (row.getAttribute('data-share-kind') || 'critics').trim().toLowerCase(); var upperTitle = postTitle.toUpperCase(); var lineTwo = (shareKind === 'audience' || shareKind === 'audience-teaser' || shareKind === 'audience-question') ? 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'Audience share options' : ((shareKind === 'ratings' || shareKind === 'ratings-admin' || shareKind === 'ratings-question') ? 'Ratings share options' : 'Critic share options'); window.__wiowLastShareOptionsContext = { row: row, heading: heading, win: previewWin }; var shown = renderShareOptionsWindow(previewWin, built.image_url, (builtSquare ? builtSquare.image_url : ''), shareUrl, heading); if (!shown) { var copied = false; if (navigator.clipboard && window.isSecureContext && navigator.clipboard.writeText){ try { await navigator.clipboard.writeText(shareUrl); copied = true; } catch (copyErr) {} } if (!copied) { var ta = document.createElement('textarea'); ta.value = shareUrl; ta.setAttribute('readonly', 'readonly'); ta.style.position = 'fixed'; ta.style.opacity = '0'; document.body.appendChild(ta); ta.focus(); ta.select(); ta.setSelectionRange(0, ta.value.length); copied = !!document.execCommand('copy'); ta.remove(); } } } if (statusEl) statusEl.textContent = (platform === 'copy') ? 'Ready.' : ''; } catch(err){ if (previewWin && !previewWin.closed) { previewWin.close(); } if (statusEl) statusEl.textContent = (err && err.message) ? err.message : 'Could not share.'; } }, true); })();