The Kid Detective - A Delightful Dark Comedy Murder Mystery Movie

There were actually quite a lot of new movies released this week. I have written one or two of them while the rest I was still thinking of whether to write a full post or not. But this movie that I saw last night on Catchplay+ (even though it was already released few weeks ago) was so fascinating that I could not wait to write about it. OK so we'll get on it now.

Brief Story Line

Abe Applebaum (Adam Brody - Ready or Not, Jennifer's Body etc) was working as a private detective in the small town where he lived in, Willowbrook. Since he was a child, young Abe (Jesse Noah Gruman) has been known for his intelligence and ability to solve minor/trivial cases and considered a local celebrity. However, he was unable to solve the missing of his friend Gracie which he never seemed to recover from and made him lose the respect from the town folks.

So when a high school girl named Caroline (Sophie Nélisse - 47 Meters Down: Uncaged etc) asked for Abe to investigate the murder of her boyfriend, he jumped to this opportunity to prove his doubters, despite having no experience of a real major case. 

And how would the story conclude? Find them all in this quite fascinating movie.

End of Brief Story Line

You know the reason why I was intrigued by this movie was the high critical and audience rating. I was also interested with the premise of murder mystery case plus the lead character who was a burnt out adult detective with burden from his past. And after watching the film, I thought it was indeed wonderful. At first I thought the mystery was not going to be too complex and the story seemed to be a little bit light although having dark humor. However it turned out it has a totally surprising dark twist that was shocking to me. 

As I have said numerous times in my other posts, I always love it when I could still be surprised in movies since mostly my wife and I could already guessed the culprit from the middle or towards the end. While this time I did not see it coming. Oh btw I watched this by myself as she was engaged in other series at the moment. But I would definitely recommend her to watch it later. 

Being a Canadian movie, quite a lot of the cast were from Canada, though Adam Brody himself is actually American. Aside from him and Sophie Nélisse, there was also 1 familiar face for me, i.e. Tzi Ma (Mulan live version, Arrival etc) though he only appeared rather briefly. Other supporting cast here were Sarah Sutherland (Veep TV series etc) as Abe's receptionist Lucy, Peter MacNeill (A History of Violence etc) as Principal Erwin, Wendy Crewson (Slasher TV series etc) and Jonathan Whittaker as Mrs and Mr. Applebaum respectively. But the stars of this film were definitely Brody and Nélisse.

Now the main attraction of this movie for me was the story telling. It was done in a simple way and combined with dry humor every now and then plus Abe's immaturity which sometimes would put him in awkward position and difficult situation. There was a scene that made me laughed quite loud when he and Caroline met with a young boy in the butcher's house. So you can understand why I was totally surprised by a totally dark twist. Credit has to be given to writer/director of this movie Evan Morgan for his creativity. He was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay in the 2021 Canadian Screen Award.

All right I have no more things to share for this film, except that it has good quality in writing, acting and story telling. It's one of those rare movies that people might not be aware of due to possibly lack of marketing. Those of you looking for an enjoyable mystery solving movie with some dark humor and a shocking conclusion would surely like it. So if you have the chance to watch the movie, please give this real hidden gem a try. I believe you would not regret it. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars