Parents' Guide to The Book Club Murders

Here the acting, script, direction, plot, sets, costumes, and lighting are: bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Film is a visual medium, but this movie is all talk. Characters constantly explain things to each other that they know the other characters already know. It's the lazy way to provide the audience with backstory. "Your husband was a person of interest," for example, and, "I still can't believe you bought this place." Even great actors would struggle with this script. A woman is introduced to members of a book club when their meeting starts. Inexplicably, when it's over, she is again introduced to all the members. A woman hands a bribe to a school official in public, for anyone to see. A police detective presents someone with a warrant to search her premises, which he says is based entirely on an anonymous tip—not actually the way the law works as an anonymous tip doesn't equal probable cause. A guy asks his girlfriend, "What do you have in mind?" then three lines later asks again, "What do you have in mind?"

At the "climax," the murderer spells out exactly how and why they did everything they did, and how and why they are about to do it again to a new victim. Nevertheless, the victim dumbly asks, "Why are you doing this?" The only surprise here is that no one took a moment to explain it all again.