Home for the holidays, former high-school hero Billy (Adam Pally) expects the red carpet to be rolled out on his arrival, but life has moved on.
His doting parents sold his old car, his friends all have great jobs whilst he’s working a bar job in Vegas, and his ex-girlfriend Kara (Rachel Bloom) is dating the high school outcast, Lowell (Vincent Kartheiser), now a beloved character around town. So when Lowell appears to be acting strangely after a mysterious murder in town, Billy is determined to prove it was Lowell, and return everything back to normal, and position himself once again as the king in town.
All the ingredients are there for a snappy indie comedy, with a twist. But for some reason the final result falls some way short of the sum of its parts.
The cast is a who’s who of supporting acts from hit TV shows. Adam Pally from The Mindy Project, John Reynolds from Search Party, the brilliant Billy Eichner from Park & Rec and Billy On The Street, Vincent Kartheiser from Mad Men, Julia Goldani Telles from The Affair, and Rachel Bloom, a star in her own right from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Director Dan Gregor co-writes with Doug Man who both made their name on How I Met Your Mother and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. While who doesn’t love a whodunnit??
But the film plays out like they’re all dialing it in. The chemistry between the cast is laboured, the plot does anything but surprise, and there’s a mean streak running through the whole thing which means you’re unlikely to give it the benefit of the doubt.
If the jokes were there, you’d let a lot of the shortcomings off too, but despite a very funny ensemble cast, the dialogue is so tame, every they can ’t raise the affair. Unfortunately Most Likely To Murder is something you’ll likely stumble upon on Netflix a few months down the line, and still not make it to the end.