SparkMore
n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
Iseerphia
All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.
Tayyab Torres
Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
Celia
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
tubeist- dan
Pierce Brosnan is a college professor who teaches a creative writing course that requires students to actually write a plausible murder scenario. A complication is that the prof himself actually wrote a book implicating a friend in a murder, for which his friend is found guilty and sent to prison. There is a twist at the very end of this really good-cinema quality-movie that has had only passing reference here among the User reviews, so this critique seeks to explore that twist in more detail.Spoiler
A number of reviewers have mentioned the twist at the end without specifying whether they are alluding to the conventional penultimate twist-the one we never suspected-or the finale in the last 30 seconds leading up to the credits.One reviewer found this the same device as in Chicago Joe and the Show Girl, but in fact that movie was content to keep jiggling the fourth wall. Murder101 does not do that until the last moment, where the wall is not merely jiggled but sort of turned into the conceptual equivalent of a time-loop. It seems the outer movie, the one we are watching on our screens, is but a tableaux to present a movie-in-the-making, a movie that lo and behold was based on a screenplay developed from the murder-assignment of one of the Prof's students, who plays an integral part in the piece himself.I can't think of this as nothing so much as a cinematic analogue of Escher's mutually drawing hands. Everyone character in the movie is in fact also an actor playing... their own part, and to make that clear at the close, the dolly-shot backwards reveals not merely the set boom-mike, but some of the 'dead' victims as very well and alive.This leads to a furious amount of re-thinking, after the movie, of everything presupposed, including plot-'holes' (eg. It had bothered me that the clever student had a cast-iron alibi-he was giving a presentation, at the time of Francesca's death, so the Prof had let off his suspicion; so why did he re-adopt his suspicion later on?), yet are these holes in the movie itself? Or are they defects in the self-referencing 'student's' self-referencing assignment-turned-movie script?And it would explain something that bothered me: the student had written an absolutely STELLAR assignment; probably the most block-buster assignment any undergrad had ever written anywhere, ever. I was expecting with its impending cover-page reveal to see an "A+". Why only an "A"? Because a few... plot-holes?
Lechuguilla
Pierce Brosnan plays Charles Lattimore, a crime writer/college lecturer who assigns his students the task of writing the perfect crime. Shortly thereafter, one of the students is found murdered, and Lattimore becomes the main suspect.The film's underlying premise is fine. The main problem here is that the film has a fairly high "fluff" factor. Its elemental, no frills screenplay, perhaps the result of budget constraints as a TV movie, makes the film seem shallow, too casual, and of low import. There is nothing wrong with fluff films, as they can be very entertaining. But some viewers dismiss them as unworthy of attention. In addition to having a plain vanilla screenplay, "Murder 101" contains some creative humor at the end, which further amplifies its fluff quotient. The result is that some viewers perceive the film as a spoof, or satire, of the murder mystery genre.But I found "Murder 101" to be a viable whodunit puzzle worthy of my time to try and solve. The plot does contain a few flaws, but they do not detract from the overall effect. Clues to the identity of the killer are very subtle, as one would expect in a good whodunit. One seemingly irrelevant scene is actually a major clue to the killer's motive.Viewers looking for razzle-dazzle special effects, innovative cinematography, fabulous costumes or set design, or unusual cinematic gimmicks will need to go elsewhere. What "Murder 101" offers is a basic, but nifty, whodunit puzzle. It will take all of your analytic skills and cunning to figure out the correct solution. And, if you're like me, you will really like that exit scene with actress Dey Young. It's a nice final touch.
MIKE WILSON
Pierce Brosnan is one of the few actors that can move from role torole with ease. He has never been restricted by the James Bondrole. From the volcano expert in Dante's Peak, to Mrs Doubtfire,and the Russian spy who fights Michael Caine in The FourthProtocol. In Murder 101, an ingenious thriller, Brosnan plays CharlesLattimore a succsseful author, who has written a best seller, abouta famous murder trial. While he is giving a series of lectures at alocal college, a student in his class is found murdered, while sheis spending the night with Lattimore. With his alibi dead, and thepolice hot on his trail, Lattimore begins to suspect that the subjectof his book, is behind the killing. Along with his ex wife, and the other students, he sets out tounmask the real killer. An enjoyable thriller, with a good twist in the tale. I wouldrecommend anyone to see it, but don't miss the final scene, it'swonderful.
Judith-4
This movie has a professor teaching students how to write a good mystery story, yet it doesn't play fair with its audience. SPOILER MAYBE. When I first saw this movie, I could tell halfway through that it wasn't playing fair, so I was able to figure out who the killer was, someone you not only wouldn't suspect but someone you shouldn't have suspected. Someone gets murdered in the movie, but it doesn't accomplish the killer's purpose, whereas killing someone else would have. There are also implausible incidents where the killer has opportunity or when they don't really have time to show up when they do. Also, the professor behaves stupidly when first confronted with his dilemma. Finding a body does not automatically make you the prime suspect. All in all, a badly written plot and the characters are not interesting enough to make up for it.