20s Movie Review - Maggie Moore(s)

Director: John Slattery
Genre: Comedy/ Crime/ Mystery
Runtime: 99 minutes
Year: 2023
Starring: Jon Hamm, Tina Fey, Micah Stock, Nick Mohammed, Happy Anderson, Mary Holland, Louisa Krause

Description: Police Chief Sanders (Jon Hamm) investigates the bizarre murders of two women with the same name and unravels a web of small-town lies. He meets and quickly falls for Rita (Tina Fey), a nosy neighbor who is eager to help solve the mystery.  

Review: Jay’s wife discovers her husband is running his sandwich store in a shady way. To make sure she keeps quiet, Jay hires someone to threaten her. Instead, she is killed, forcing Jay to take further measures to lead the police astray.

Jay’s business is a sandwich store like Subway of sorts. As a franchise, he actually has to buy from the main company’s supplier. He saves a lot of money by illegally purchasing his supplies from someone else: he gets spoiled ingredients for next to nothing in exchange for supplying obscure photos. Jay’s wife discovers this and her world collapses.

The wife is named Maggie Moore and not much later another Maggie Moore is found dead. Small-town cop Sanders investigates, discovering a web of lies.

John Slattery, known for his roles in the TV show “Mad Men” and Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight”, takes on the role of director this time. It’s clear he was inspired by the Coen Brothers, most specifically “Fargo”. It never reaches the level of any of the Coen Brothers’ movies, it feels a bit messy and clumsy at times.

It’s a comic crime story, which has some good moments. But it’s overall a pretty basic and forgettable movie. Not great, not bad, just okay.

Rating: 3/ 5