“Murder Mystery is riddled with clichés,” claims the Spanish tourism board, “and it’s fifty years out of date.”
MURDER MYSTERY stars Jennifer Aniston & Adam Sandler as an American couple traveling through Europe. A Netflix original, the movie racked up 30-million viewers in its first three days on Netflix.
Sandler plays a New York cop taking a long-overdue vacation, accompanied by his wife, played by Aniston.
When they arrive in the city of Málaga, they’re greeted by a Gypsy woman wearing a flamenco dress, a man with a guitar, and a guide standing beside an ancient bus bearing the sign: Gonzales Tour.
FYI – In Spain, González is spelled with a “Z” – not with an “S” – & their tour buses are modern, air-conditioned vehicles – not dilapidated rattle-traps .
Málaga is a port city on Spain’s southern coast – or Costa del Sol.
“The image in this film bears no resemblance to what the Costa del Sol is really like,” says Fátima Oliva, a spokeswoman for Costa del Sol tourism. “We’re more surprised than indignant. It’s a very old fashioned idea of life here, with a Gypsy at the airport and all that. Málaga has thirty-seven museums and has become an important cultural tourist destination.”
Well, let’s take a look at the trailer:
“It’s not like that here,” says the director general of the Costa del Sol tourism department. His name is Arturo Bernal. He accused the film-makers of a lack of research and invited the production company to come to see for themselves.
FYI – Happy Madison, Sandler’s production company, shot the movie in Montreal and various locations in Italy. Not one scene shot in Málaga, or anywhere else in Spain.
The scene they’re criticizing doesn’t appear in the trailer, so I don’t know what they’re talking about. I came away with the image of a hip, modern city. But, once again, I didn’t see the scene, or scenes, in question.
Despite popping up on my screen every time I open Netflix, I have no desire to watch the movie. While I like Jennifer Aniston & can tolerate Adam Sandler, my passion is for Crime Fiction & True Crime – not comedy. Plus, when I see him on the screen, I don’t see a New York City cop, and he’s not a good enough actor, comedy or not, to make it believable.
Until I see the movie for myself, which I eventually will, I’ll loosely squeeze it into the category: Crime Fiction.
Barry Bowe
America’s Best Crime Writer
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