Lifetime
Lifetime rolls out another Sunday mystery with the misleadingly titled Murder at the Derby, which does feature one murder and one attempted but neither of them at the Derby (and no, not the Kentucky Derby but close — the Lexington Derby).
Murder at the Derby is a story of a powerful Lexington, Kentucky family, the Rosemonts, known for their excellence in raising and training horses to run in the Lexington Derby … or perhaps it’s the Lexington Stakes, which is a real race that is the last step on the road to the Kentucky Derby. Anywho, the Rosemonts are in need of a new trainer for their prize stallion and young Kara Miller is selected, out of the blue, from a local horse farm on the recommendation of her boss Reggie. Kara — who has a veterinary degree that her mother thinks is being wasted on horse grooming and stall cleaning chores — quickly demonstrates her knowledge and head honcho Jennifer Rosemont is happy with what she’s seeing. Kara also meets, and begins to instantly flirt with, Justin, the son of Stephen Rosemont, Jennifer’s brother and the man she’s in a power struggle with over control of the family business. Mother Evelyn is not pleased with Stephen’s history of not picking winning horses for the family to groom and train (they haven’t had a win for a couple of years) and puts all the control into the hands of Jennifer. None of them are aware Kara just happened to be outside the doorway listening to the argument, but Stephen runs into her and shows his complete disdain for this person who is beneath his and his family’s status, and advises his son not to mingle with ‘the help’.
Lifetime
But Kara’s hard work pays off and the horse wins, humiliating Stephen and causing Evelyn to alert him that she’s writing him out of the will, handing the business to Jennifer completely. Well, you can guess at this point — if you didn’t figure it out already — that Evelyn isn’t long for this world. Stephen laces her nightly whisky — Evelyn is known to have a drink or four before bed — with horse tranquilizer (not Ivermectin!) and puts her to sleep permanently with a pillow over her face. Evelyn was old and ill, so there is really no idea from anyone that foul play was involved, and apparently there was no autopsy because she is in the ground faster than that horse can run a mile. With her death coming before she could amend her will, Stephen’s plan to take the business from Jennifer escalate to the point that he sets the barn on fire, with the prize winning horse inside! Luckily Jennifer wakes up in time to rescue the horse but she is injured by a flaming falling beam, putting her out of commission just before the next race. And the horse is spooked as well so Stephen, now working for a competitor, believes his horse will be able to outrun his family’s horse. But he’s got one other little problem — Kara. He blackmails the jockey (who, it seems, has some undocumented family members that Stephen is threatening to report — how timely) to implicate Kara in the fire and attempted murder of Jennifer, and potentially for the death of Evelyn as well, even turning Justin against her. Trying to clear her name, Stephen captures her and shackles her up in a stall, syringe full of tranquilizer to give her an eternal sleep. Can she wiggle her way out, or will people come to their senses and realize Stephen is the real villain?
Murder at the Derby is … not great. The story by John F. Hayes is as slow as molasses in winter with very little suspense. While watching, you know who will be the first person to die. It’s obviously going to be Evelyn, especially after she announces the coming change to her will. Let this be a lesson to you — don’t tell someone you’re going to cut them out of the will! Just do it. You’ll already be dead when they find out. But there really isn’t much originality to the story overall. You know Kara is not going to die, and you have a pretty good idea who will stop Stephen. It’s all just pretty by-the-numbers. And always placing Kara outside of the room where the Rosemonts are having their family screaming matches is just a bit too on-the-nose (allowing her to overhear the will stuff is a nice touch but she’s the only one there so she has no way to prove what she heard). Director Brittany Underwood makes good use of the Lexington locations, but the languorous direction lulls you into a state of disinterest.
Lifetime
The cast has to fight hard to make this interesting for the audience and, apparently, themselves. Ronni Hawk (Kara) has an expression that seems to never change and quite often it looks like she’s about to bust out laughing, always looking like she’s trying hard to conceal a smirk, even in the most dramatic moments. Kate Watson is a bit more believable as Jennifer, but when she has to be pretending to cheer on the horse during the races … acting! Bonny Breuer is fine as family matriarch Evelyn, while Candace Kirkpatrick is a bit too on the edge of hysteria as Kara’s mother Alexandra. Chris Brooks feels the most natural as Justin, and he actually has good chemistry with Hawk. He also has a good moment with his father where he can barely conceal his contempt for the man. Speaking of Stephen, Daniel O’Reilly does all he can to chew the scenery, clearly written as the villain and running with it. Too bad he didn’t have a mustache to twirl (but whoever made the decision to slick down his hair like that — matching Evelyn’s look — should be reprimanded because his hair is the only thing you can focus on).
Murder at the Derby is definitely not anywhere as exciting as a derby; it’s more like watching turtles race, slow and steady to the inevitable finish line. The script is hokey, the direction pokey, and the cast is a bit jokey (unintentionally). It almost feels like everyone knew this was not going to be great and tried as hard as they could to at least inject some campiness into it, but in the end it was just a waste of time for everyone (at least people got paid to make the film, so that’s one good thing to come out of it).
Murder at the Derby has a run time of 1 hour 27 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
As boring as reading a Harlequin romance paperback.
Predictable.