Hallmark Mystery has some genuinely great movie franchises out there: a few recent favorites,The Cases of Mystery Lane, CrimeTime: Freefall, and the Mystery Island series, are all recurring cozy mystery series in the spirit of Columbo and Murder, She Wrote and have been super fun watches. Mystery Island: Winner Takes All, out this week on the channel, is a riff on the murder-mystery-party-gone-wrong where someone really does get murdered and every party guest becomes a suspect. The excellent pairing of Elizabeth Henstridge and Charlie Weber is the main reason to watch; hopefully this isn’t the last murder they have to solve.
MYSTERY ISLAND: WINNER TAKES ALL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Flashlight in hand, Emilia (Elizabeth Henstridge) appears to be investigating what looks like a mansion – a very dark, very luxurious mansion. She wanders from room to room and is jarred to see her partner, Jason (Charlie Weber) standing before her. Together they head into the kitchen where they open a freezer to discover a body.
The Gist: Dr. Emilia Priestly and Detective Jason Trent are cops by day, but that’s not what has led them to discover a frozen dead guy. See, they both work a side gig as game architects who plan out elaborate murder mysteries for wealthy clients on Mystery Island, a resort on a private, tropical island that creates real-life Clue vacations. The man in the freezer was not real, nor was their late-night investigation, it was just a recreation of them brainstorming a new murder mystery plot for paying clients who come stay there to be fully immersed in a faux murder investigation. But Janey, their boss at Mystery Island, needs them to develop a new murder mystery because she’s planning to hold a big contest where the winners will join a famous mystery novelist, Cassandra Cornwall (Kristin Booth), for a highly-promoted event on the island for a weekend.
The winning guests brought to the island are an NYPD detective named Bobby and his plus one, his brother, Davis. Another winner, Alice Watley, is a true crime podcaster, who has brought along her aunt, Louise. Janey, the boss at Mystery Island, and her new boyfriend James, a mouthy Texas businessman, are also in attendance, and Cassandra Cornwall, the celebrity author, has brought her bon vivant husband Ted for the trip. These are our eight participants, who are all waited on by a house manager named Fredericks. As they enter the sprawling estate and are immersed into the world of Mystery Island and its luxe offerings. Meanwhile, Emilia and James are there too, posing as house staff, but also to observe and make sure the game is played as intended.
The guests are informed that one of them will be killed – fake killed, of course – and will retreat to an isolated suite for the rest of their trip while the remaining guests have to solve the murder. Before that can happen, it becomes clear that there are secrets and odd relationships among all the guests – James is merely an actor pretending to be a Texas millionaire, Fredericks the valet seems to know Aunt Louise from somewhere, and NYPD cop Bobby seems generally suspicious of everyone already and has some secrets of his own. As the guests suspiciously eye each other and prepare to witness a fake murder, a real explosion rocks the villa and when the smoke clears, Fredericks is really dead.
As the guests remain trapped on the island and Emilia and Jason (and local law enforcement) conduct an actual investigation, clues and suspicions emerge and it appears that pretty much everyone has some sort of motive, but alas, there can only be one killer.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The comparison to Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is undeniable, it’s essentially a very similar formula, minus that Southern dandy, Benoit Blanc.
Our Take: For anyone who has seen Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, you’ll feel a pang of familiarity with the overall premise (a group is invited to an island where an unexpected real death occurs, and everyone’s a suspect). This variation may not be as star-studded as Rian Johnson’s films, but it’s still a really fun, well-plotted mystery that will keep you guessing all the way to the moment the detectives pull out their whiteboard full of clues and reveal the killer’s identity.
Elizabeth Henstridge made her memorable U.S. TV debut in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as half of a brainy duo working for the government, and her role as Emilia in the Mystery Island movies gives her a similar opportunity to partner up, this time with Charlie Weber, and show off not only their mystery-solving prowess but their great chemistry with each other.
The film works because it’s got a well-honed mystery, but it excels because their pairing has so much going for it, including a hint of flirtation behind their professionalism, calling to mind other great investigative duos like Maddie and David on Moonlighting or Mulder and Scully on The X-Files. Emilia and Jason don’t bicker or argue, but they do try to keep their obvious feelings for each other at bay, which creates its own kind of fun tension throughout as they unravel the clues which lead them to their killer.
Parting Shot: After the investigation ends, Emilia and Jason exchange witty banter: “We’ll just have to keep working together to figure out who works for who,” he tells her, and she quickly corrects him, “Who works for whom.”
“You’re so English,” he responds.
“And you’re so American,” she says as the camera pans away from them and over the water, flying high over Mystery Island.
Performance Worth Watching: Adam Rojko Vega plays James, the faux Texan businessman who’s really a struggling New York improviser and actor, and as the movie progresses, he seems to workshop a few other characters. He’s definitely got the most fun role(s) to play in here and he has fun hamming it up.
Memorable Dialogue: After the detectives’ elaborate explanation revealing who the killer is, the mystery novelist, CC Cornwall, guffaws, “You can’t write this!”
Our Call: STREAM IT! I’ve long felt that the movies on Hallmark Mystery are among some of the best Hallmark has to offer, they often have great casts and clever plots that sprinkle in a lot of silly fun. Mystery Island: Winner Takes All is a great example of that, and it’s well worth the time.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.
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