A Deadly Invitation Review: Directed by José Manuel Cravioto and written by Javier Durán Pérez and Anton Goenechea, this comedy mystery-thriller is based on the novel of the same name by Carmen Posadas. With a runtime of 92 minutes, the film (Invitación a un asesinato) stars Regina Blandón, Maribel Verdú, Helena Rojo, Manolo Cardona (From Who Killed Sara?), Stephanie Cayo, Pedro Damián and others.

A Deadly Invitation Plot

After getting a surprise invitation from her millionaire sister for a yacht party along with a bunch of acquaintances, Agatha and the guests are left shocked when one of the guests turns up dead. Faced with a murder in their hands, Agatha must join hands with a rookie cop to bring the murderer to justice and solve the surprising crime.

– A Deadly Invitation Review Does Not Contain Spoilers –

If we start to think about all the reasons why we can murder the person next to us, we would probably all be looking quite guilty. Thus, the concept of movies such as A Deadly Invitation, or Invitación a un asesinato, is getting more and more ludicrous to me. Sure, I enjoyed Glass Onion and Knives Out, and Neeyat was also okay (although a bit dumb), and similar movies from the Agatha Christie universe, like A Murder on the Orient Express etc., are also enjoyable. But when every other murder mystery starts to have 10 suspects all trapped in a room, you fall into quicksand that you can never get out of.

The problem with A Deadly Invitation is the fact that it is so random. Things just happen because the script demands it and because it’s the exact same storyline that we have seen in other movies of the genre. Even some of the characters are similar, if not the same, and they have just moved around here and there to give us an illusion it’s something different. It’s not; the number of similarities extends to the background score as well, which seems more familiar than not.

After watching 90 minutes of this film, I failed to understand the point of it – what is it trying to say? What sets it apart? Unfortunately, thanks to the success of these whodunit movies, A Deadly Invitation puts some social commentary in the mix in the most lazy way possible and then explains away everything before you have the time to ask who could’ve been the murderer. It’s just a confusing movie that constantly makes you wonder why you are watching it. There’s nothing that it does that is any different from anything that we have seen in the past. Unfortunately, it remakes these elements in a way that garners no interest.

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Maybe if the movie was made differently, you’d feel some sort of a connection, but it’s neither funny nor thrilling and just asks a few questions and immediately answers everything in depth by taking its sweet time. Thus, you never feel any questions come up that might make you want to use your own brain. Everything is broken down and explained. Well, that is to say, the movie has much to explain. It’s so mind-numbing dumb, and low effort that it’s an insult to call it a whodunit. At some point, I was wondering whether this was a satire of the movies of the genre, but I still think it was trying to be serious with the storyline.

Either way, Invitación a un asesinato features some of the most boring and uninspiring characters that evoke no sense of thrill either. I just don’t understand how 10 people can be this boring together and individually. How can you manage to have these many actors and write such bland characters for them? None of them have any backstory or personality and continue to repeat the 5 lines that they have been assigned. Their personalities are also limited to these lines, and it’s like watching a bunch of robots blabbering on and on. That’s not to question anyone’s acting abilities, but with a script this bad, there’s only so much you can do.

A Deadly Invitation Review: Final Thoughts

This whodunit comedy tries its hand at everything in order to make something stick. In an effort to have its own cake and eat it, too, the movie is able to achieve nothing. It’s neither funny nor thrilling and is like lying on a wet blanket, feeling extremely uncomfortable but not being able to escape. There are better things to watch in the genre instead of watching similar movies made very lazily.

A Deadly Invitation is streaming on Netflix.

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