Brazen Review

 Brazen is Netflix’s newest film and it is a film that overall we thought was alright. We found that the story was predictable but the characters were fine. However this is not a film we will necessarily remember in a year.

Brazen Review – 6.0/10

Now for anyone who has read my reviews since starting this website you may have noticed that generally I am pretty kind towards movies and am usually quite positive even when I didn’t like a film but for this film, I don’t know, I just didn’t like it very much. I have watched many mysteries in my time and even the predictable ones I could find entertainment while watching but this film was just dull.  I just found that this film had nothing that surprising or engaging in it.  The characters were bland and standard and the story was as predictable as can be. The story is that Grace, a bestselling murder mystery author, is visiting her sister Kathleen when one night Kathleen is murdered. So Grace along with the detective next door investigate together to find the killer. Now I know that sounds like a pretty by-the-numbers murder mystery plot and it is but there is one element I wasn’t expecting that I will talk about in the spoiler section.  The actors did a fine job with what they were given. I just think that the script they were given wasn’t that interesting and didn’t really give any development to the characters. Our protagonist Grace played by Alyssa Milano is an author who writes murder mystery novels so she decides to help the investigation into her sister’s murder. I found her character underdeveloped and sadly annoying because I can tell the actress is trying. I just didn’t like the character.  This movie wasn’t long, only about an hour and a half but the pacing was so slow that I felt that this film was two hours and in this case that wasn’t an upside.  I just felt that the mystery was poorly handled as I felt that they moved through all the red herrings too quickly not making me believe it was any of them.
Now my biggest problem with this film actually revolves around the characters and most specifically Grace. She is an author, not a detective or a private investigator and she does not seem capable of solving crimes. Now I know this isn’t the first time in the film there has been an author who has ended up solving a murder but I found it hard to believe her character was not only great at solving a murder but better than the police. If they had established her as being this one of a kind in some aspect of investigation maybe I could see her as someone who could pull this off but to me, she seemed much more talk than action. They have one scene showing us her criminal profiling skills and I feel that wasn’t enough to justify her basically taking the lead on the investigation.

Also, I don’t believe she should have been allowed in on the investigation as she was way too emotionally attached and I know I’m no police officer but I’m pretty sure police aren’t even usually allowed to investigate relatives’ murders let alone a civilian.

Finally, in terms of being predictable, I figured it would be Jerald who was the killer. Now yes I have seen a lot of these kinds of movies but I felt every scene he was in made it more and more clear which made it harder to believe the other suspects were even a possibility.

The positive thing in spoilers that I want to mention is the element of the dominatrix that was introduced as the targets of the killer and Kathleen, Grace’s sister being one herself. Now, this was a surprisingly sexual movie which was unexpected and took away from the mystery in my opinion but at the same time, it was a unique element that made this film stand out.

All in all, this wasn’t a great film and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you only want to watch a new Netflix film. Otherwise, just leave this one off your list.