Une ombre sur le mariage (2014) Online

This movie had a great cast. I liked most of the actors in their respective roles but the script was terrible. The situations were contrived. Most of the conclusion that the main character drew were based on faulty reasoning. The decisions they made to solve problems or get out of dangerous situations were always based on bad decision making. I found myself constantly saying aloud: "No one would do that." More than once, someone was accused of a crime based on ridiculous logic. This was a Murder Mystery; a formula that calls for a certain amount of logic and deduction. I found both sorely missing. I really liked Erica Durance in the lead. I really hated the lines they obviously forced her to say. As Hallmark Movies go this was the most disappointing one I have ever watch. Disappointing because it had all the elements to be enjoyable. If, when you suspend belief while watching this, you also suspend logic and reasoning, you may still be able to enjoy this movie.

Lately the Hallmark Channel has been having all kinds of amateur female detective heroes in their films. It's all in the grand tradition of that most famous and successful amateur sleuth of the female gender Miss Jane Marple.

Erica Durance is our detective here and as you see by the title she's a wedding planner. Right now she's planning her rich friend Chelan Simmons's wedding. But there are a lot of complications like a feud between her father and his former business partner, both of whom are under investigation. And then there's the death of a cousin of Simmons in a car crash where the car was tampered with.

While all this is going on Durance is also being courted by reporter Andrew Walker and lawyer Brandon Beemer. Who will she choose?

As it turns out that murder was only part of a greater scheme hatched by members of the cast. That's what Durance has to foil to get this wedding back on track.

Wedding Planner Mystery was a pleasant enough mystery with some good performances by the ensemble. Hallmark with its PG programming is providing some good entertainment with these films.

Hallmark has very up positive movies and you almost always walk away with a smile. The main character in Wedding Planner Mysteries was good but the parts of script was so unbelievably contrary to the characters personality and intelligence. She kept making decisions that were so common sense and yet she went the other way. There were many comments that should have been made to the police, that she kept secret for no real reason, other than to make her look guilty. She was obviously hostile towards the Detective for no real reason. It was like the whole story line was being placed on her part rather than setting the interaction across the cast.

I love Erica Durance; the other cast members were good and believable. However, the script was the worst. I see others came to the same conclusion. I, unfortunately, cannot suspend enough (belief, logic, you name it) to enjoy this movie as a murder mystery. I finally figured out the only way to enjoy it was as a comedy. And that worked. It's amazing that Hallmark airs this because most of their murder mysteries, in addition to having good production values, are fairly well written. This is a major bump in the road from that angle.

Note that I absolutely believe there are people out there who are dumb enough to act this way. But no one should make a movie about them! It just gets viewers upset over nothing.

A bridesmaid dies in a suspicious car accident after leaving a wedding party in a fit. The wedding planner (Erica Durance) is apparently in danger of being blamed for supplying alcohol at the party. Legally, I might add, so I don't see what the crime was but okay that's what gets this off the ground. Anyway, Erica investigates the case to find out if the girl was murdered and gets herself in deeper and deeper trouble.

This is from a series of books I'm unfamiliar with so I can't make any comparisons between the two. One of the things the movie does that I really didn't like was an irritating book-style narration. I assume this was to tie in with the books somehow but I found it annoying. I watched this for Erica Durance and she's great in it. She's lovely as ever and has the most charisma of anybody in this. In the movie's most adorable scene, she investigates wearing cat makeup. Chelan Simmons, of Final Destination 3 fame, is the bride-to-be whose wedding Erica is planning. The rest of the cast is made up of very forgettable and bland Canadians. The worst is Gabrielle Rose who hams it up with glee, no doubt influenced by the ridiculous wig they had her wear. The reporter love interest for Erica is underwhelming. The two have a friendly banter but I didn't see any sparks. It also appears all of the actors were responsible for their own makeup.

About the time Erica's brakes went out in her van I realized this wasn't going to be breaking any new ground. It was very easy to spot who the bad guys are. They're the ones acting shady and suspicious, doing everything but twirling their mustaches and saying "Muah-ha-ha!" One of the bigger selling points for this is also one of its drawbacks. I'm speaking of the comedy. The movie has a lighthearted tone, despite being a murder mystery. The problem with that is that due to the comedy, which shows up at inappropriate times, it's hard to build any suspense or ever feel our heroine or her friends are in real danger. Someone locks her in a room by gunpoint and there's some kind of Laurel & Hardy music playing. It's too silly to be taken seriously. It's not terribly fresh or suspenseful but it's very watchable. Honestly, it felt less like a movie and more like a TV pilot. Perhaps that's because they intended this to be the first in a series of TV movies based on this character. Fans of Erica Durance will enjoy it just for seeing her. If nothing else, she proves here she could knock it out of the park with better material.

Just too much wrong with this movie, and I was so excited because I have always wanted to be a party planner, so I usually enjoy movies with Wedding Planners, it's their organizational skills and quick thinking that really makes me happy to see. If Carnegie had used her thinking skills, maybe she wouldn't have accused so many of her friends of murder, and figured out was going on a lot sooner.

The first thing that really struck me as being odd/way off, is when the detective said it was Carnegie's fault that the person died because she had served alcohol at a wedding. I don't know, maybe growing up in Wisconsin, where drinking is the number one pastime, my opinions are skewed, but I would think that there is some clause in a wedding planner's contract that would say they are in no way responsible for people drinking.

So this sends her into a panic, and she tries solving the crime, and in the process accuses a lot of the people she knows. And afterwards, she doesn't even apologize. So while this is going on, she is wooed by a lawyer, and trying to fend off a reporter. To me the reporter was over the top at what a jerk he was being, and even though Carnegie kept denying him, when she does decide she likes him, it's so fast that if they make any more movies from this series I can see them getting married.

There's also something to be said about just using common sense. If you see someone being really nice to everyone, but then really mean to you, and then really nice again when someone walks into the room, you might want to suspect them.

The ending when we find out who did what, felt like a Scooby-Doo episode to me. The dialogue was terrible, and I thought one of the characters was actually going to say, "And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for you meddling kids."