‘Dead Giveaway’ movie review: a preposterous murder mystery
Dead Giveaway, the debut feature from writer and director Ian Kimble, is a zany blend of drama and comedy that combines a murder mystery with scattered, unpredictable female characters familiar from films like Clueless or Bridesmaids, as well as an ongoing ‘missing time’ plot similar to The Hangover, with goofy young women as the main source of comedy.
The story launches immediately into homicidal chaos when carefree single woman Jill (Ruby Modine, of TV series Shameless) wakes up, badly hungover and wearing party clothes, to find a blood-soaked corpse next to her in bed and no memory of the last twelve hours.
Jill’s entertainingly horrified reaction does not involve anything as sensible as notifying the police, but is centred mainly on covering up the situation, and ensuring it doesn’t interfere with the brunch date she is looking forward to.
When Jill is joined by her friend Lia, played by Mikaela Hoover (Superman, Guardians of the Galaxy 3), their joint efforts to find answers become both desperate and madly slapstick. As the pair try to solve the murder of the stranger while hiding the situation from Jill’s roommate and multiple visitors, their inefficient efforts are helped along by occasional flashbacks from the previous night and the appearance of possible witnesses and suspects.
Jill and Lia’s interaction as hare-brained party girls is amusing for both its ineffectiveness and its self-absorbed indifference to the reality of murder, since the likelihood of making it to brunch remains paramount.
Much of the comedy is predictable, especially the endless cover-up explanations and deflections, which have already been heard in countless other films.
The story is made more entertaining by the brief, visual asides, which show either flashes of memory or depictions of Jill’s brainstorms on how to cope with the situation, frequently involving dismemberment in a bathtub, presented in momentary but gruesome detail.
The story starts fairly strong, lapses into the formulaic, then picks up in the second half. When the young women’s lame sleuthing efforts begin to bear fruit, new characters appear to add danger and disorder, and disputes over their various interests in the deceased take precedence.
The narrative finally gains real tension as actual suspects appear, and the realities of murder and potential danger override the main characters’ frivolity. The film ultimately becomes a genuine, if preposterous, murder mystery, leading to a conclusion that makes sense according to the leads’ ridiculous worldview, and the result is good fun overall.
