LMN
LMN shows up again with a new thriller, Deadly Girls Trip, that brings together the family of network stars from recently reviewed My Amish Double Life, Murder Below Deck, and Murder in Nashville, that actually turned out to be pretty nifty with some of its twists and turns.
The story centers around four neighborhood friends — Lacey (Kristi Murdock), Rebecca (Lesa Wilson), Addie (Charlotte Hemmings) and Janice (Kate Dailey) — who are leaving for the weekend to celebrate Rebecca’s birthday. Lacey, though, has a secret that she’s afraid to share because she doesn’t want to overshadow Rebecca’s big day, only telling Janice that she’s pregnant. But a game in which Lacey is asked to reveal a secret kind of forces her hand and she spills the beans … and everyone is overjoyed (Rebecca and Addie already suspected anyway). Early in the morning, Lacey is awakened by what sounds like voices and a thud, but she goes back to sleep only awaken a few hours later to see Janice sprawled out on the patio in a puddle of blood. After being questioned by the police, the three women return home but Lacey can’t accept that Janice’s death was an accident, and her persistence gets her blocked from the group text.
In an effort to distract Lacey, her friends try to make her believe that her husband Blake is having an affair with his business partner Cathy, and she actually believes this to be true (and Blake’s somewhat overly affectionate behavior with Cathy doesn’t help, but they just landed a new client for their office design business so his focus on work seems to be more than it is) so she asks him to give her some space to think about things. But she begins to get deeper and deeper into the circumstances surrounding Janice’s death to the point of putting her own life in danger as she gets too close to the truth. Was Janice’s death an unfortunate accident, or did Rebecca and Addie have a reason for wanting her dead?
Deadly Girls Trip has a pretty solid story thanks to screenwriter Leo McGuigan. The relationships between the four women feel authentic, like they have known each other for years, and even newcomer Janice — whose only been in the neighborhood for a year — has easily fit into the group. The script does a nice job of peeling back the layers of the mystery, revealing who Janice is and why she moved into the neighborhood, exposing Addie’s dark secret, and offering a surprise reveal of Blake and Cathy’s new client. It all works very well, mostly. There are a few head-scratching moments (such as the whole plot revolving around people being dishonest, putting them in more peril, when they could have just told the police what really happened … but that would have made for a short movie) and a silly plot device involving brand new, not-yet-on-the-market baby monitors that have a miles long signal reach, and Lacey’s sudden illness that’s played like she was drugged, but nothing that’s egregious enough to ruin the central premise. Damián Romay also does a good job directing, building the tension, and keeping the actors from acting too suspicious and remarkably uses one or two background extras, keeping everything focused on the main cast of characters. Pretty impressive.
The cast all do great jobs with their characters. Murdock pretty much carries the film, especially when she puts on her detective shoes, fully committed to finding the truth about Janice and her death. The only false note comes between her and Alex Trumble when she confronts him about a negligee conveniently found under the comforter at the foot of her bed. She doesn’t want to hear anything Blake has to say, and Trumble’s performance doesn’t really sell his innocence (of course the nightie was planted there but Lacey never once considers that option). Her sudden illness also comes out of nowhere and her performance immediately screams ‘I was drugged’. But she still makes for an engaging heroine in the end. Trumble gets the worst of it because he’s written and directed to always be suspicious. There’s one moment where he puts his arm around Cathy and draws her close to him right in front of Lacey that makes it hard to believe he isn’t having an affair. The character is also so focused on his work that he often brushes off Lacey and pays more attention to Cathy, so Trumble can only work with what he’s been given and it’s not all that great (you almost expect him to rush in and save the day at the end, but he doesn’t get a hero moment).
Wilson is very good as Rebecca, a nice 180 from the Amish mother she recently played, scheming to keep the truth hidden from Lacey and the police. She comes off as a strong woman who will do what’s necessary to save herself and her friends, and in this case everything she does is to keep Addie safe, mainly because of her distressing backstory, and more importantly to keep Addie’s son safe. Hemmings is also very good as Addie, a woman who needs to be strong but also has a strong sense of needing to do what’s right, and as much as she wants to pretend Janice’s death was an accident, Lacey convinces her to tell the truth once she learns what Addie is hiding. Dailey is also good in her brief time as Janice, getting to show a little more of her character in some flashbacks that give her a little more depth. Maya Brim is fine as Detective Sanchez, but her line reading make it always sound like she either doesn’t believe what Lacey is telling her, or just thinks Lacey is some flake who confused the TV with the muffled voices outside her room, and when she and Addie go to the station she seems more bothered than interested (perhaps since the case was closed and she didn’t want to have to go to the trouble of reopening it … or looking like she didn’t properly do her job). Nick Schroeder is also good as Blake’s new client, but there are some layers there that we won’t spoil here.
Overall, Deadly Girls Trip is a solid mystery with a good cast and direction, and an entertaining story filled with some nifty character twists. It’s not perfect, but it’s engaging enough that it’s not a complete time waster.
Deadly Girls Trip has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-14.