Thursday Murder Club Movie Review: Pierce Brosnan Can't Save This Disappointing Book Adaptation

The Thursday Murder Club is a 2025 Netflix movie starring Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie as four people living in a fancy retirement home. Directed by Chris Columbus and based on Richard Osman's bestselling book, the story follows these friends who meet every Thursday to talk about old murder cases. When someone is actually murdered at their retirement home, they decide to solve the real crime themselves. What's meant to be a fun mystery about smart older people catching criminals turns out to be more complicated.

The Plot

It's about four older people living in a fancy retirement place called Coopers Chase who love solving murder mysteries together.

The main characters are Elizabeth (played by Helen Mirren), who used to be a spy for the government. There's Ron (Pierce Brosnan), who was a union leader. Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley) is a psychiatrist, which means he's a doctor who helps people with their minds. And Joyce (Celia Imrie) is a nurse who just moved to the retirement home.

Every Thursday, these four friends meet up to talk about old murder cases that the police never solved. They call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. They're inspired by an old case about a woman named Angela Hughes who was murdered years ago. The case was investigated by a police detective named Penny Gray, but she's now very sick and in the hospital.

A young police officer named Donna comes to visit the retirement home. She's bored with her job and becomes friends with the Thursday Murder Club. They're excited to have a real police officer helping them.

But then something terrible happens. There's a big argument about whether Coopers Chase should be torn down and turned into fancy apartments. One of the businessmen, Ian Ventham, wants to destroy the retirement home. His partner Tony Curran says he'll protect the residents and stop the sale.

Soon after this, Tony is murdered in his own house! Someone broke in, killed him, and stole things. The murder weapon is missing too.

The Thursday Murder Club decides they have to solve this real murder first. With Donna's help, they discover that a dangerous criminal named Bobby Tanner is secretly involved in the business. They also learn that Ron's son Jason used to work with Tony.

At first, everyone thinks Ian might be the killer. But then during a protest by the residents, Ian suddenly collapses and dies! It turns out someone poisoned him with a deadly drug called fentanyl. Now Bobby Tanner owns everything.

The police arrest Jason, but they don't have strong evidence against him.

Elizabeth becomes friends with a Polish worker named Bogdan who fixes things around the retirement home. One day, Bogdan shows Elizabeth a hidden grave in the cemetery. Inside, they find an old skeleton. The police figure out it belongs to Peter Mercer, who was connected to Angela Hughes's murder all those years ago.

Elizabeth starts getting threatening messages telling her to stop investigating.

When Jason proves he didn't do the murder (he was having a secret affair with Ian's wife), the Thursday Murder Club focuses on Bobby Tanner. Elizabeth and Donna discover that Bobby has been trafficking people-basically kidnapping workers from other countries and stealing their passports so they can't escape.

Elizabeth makes a deal with Bobby. She promises not to tell the police about his human trafficking if he agrees to leave Coopers Chase alone. Then Elizabeth realizes that Bogdan killed Tony.

Later, while Bogdan is playing chess with Elizabeth's husband Stephen, he admits that he killed Tony but didn't mean to. He was being pressured and it was an accident. Stephen secretly records this confession, and Bogdan gets arrested.

But there's more! The Thursday Murder Club figures out the truth about that old murder of Angela Hughes. It turns out that Peter Mercer was actually the one who killed Angela. Detective Penny Gray discovered this years ago, and together with her husband John, she secretly killed Mercer to deliver justice and buried his body in the cemetery. When Ian's plans to tear down Coopers Chase threatened to uncover Mercer's hidden grave, John murdered Ian to protect Penny and keep their dark secret safe.

In the end, both Penny and John die in the hospital. It's suggested they took poison to kill themselves rather than face the consequences.

At their funeral, Elizabeth takes Penny's club necklace and gives it to Joyce, officially making her a full member of the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce's daughter, who works with money and investments, thinks about buying Coopers Chase to save it. Life goes back to normal, and the club is ready for their next mystery.

Comparing to the Books

Many people who read the original books by Richard Osman are really angry about this adaptation. The books are much more thoughtful and deal with serious themes about aging, grief, and death. The book version of the story is more nuanced about right and wrong, while the movie oversimplifies everything.

The books are told from Joyce's perspective and focus on her emotional journey after losing her husband, but the movie makes Elizabeth the main character instead.

The books focus more on the emotional lives of the characters, especially dealing with themes of aging, grief, and mortality. Joyce is the main character in the books, and we see the story through her eyes as she copes with losing her husband and making new friends.

Joyce's diary is also completely ignored. In the books, Joyce writes journal entries that frame the story and give it humor, warmth, and intimacy. They make her feel like a real person who is dealing with grief while finding new friendships late in life. The movie drops this sub-plot entirely and instead shifts the focus onto Elizabeth, making her the main character. This change strips away much of the emotional depth and gentle humor that made the books special.

Another huge difference is how the movie treats Bogdan. In the books, his decision to kill Tony is presented as an act of justified vengeance, and he remains a beloved character who grows closer to Elizabeth, Joyce, and Stephen over time. Fans especially love his father-son-like relationship with Stephen, which continues throughout the books. The movie, however, has Bogdan arrested and written out completely. Not only does this ruin one of the most heartfelt arcs in the books, but it also destroys any chance of properly adapting the sequels. Many readers, especially in Poland, were upset by how stereotypical and poorly written Bogdan came across on screen.

The film also deletes or cuts down several supporting characters that add richness in the novels. Characters like Gianni, the Playfairs, Father Mackie, and Bernard don't appear at all. In the book, these smaller side plots build the world of Coopers Chase and show the residents' personalities, but the movie reduces the retirement home to just a backdrop for the murder case.

On top of that, the movie adds new material that wasn't in the books, like a funeral eulogy scene and some visual gags that seem designed to wink at Helen Mirren's past as Queen Elizabeth. While these additions might amuse casual viewers, book fans felt they distracted from the story and replaced meaningful character moments with cheap jokes.

Even the cold case is simplified. In the book, the long-ago murder involves Annie Madeley and Peter Mercer, and the mystery unravels in a layered, complicated way. The movie changes the victim to Angela Hughes and makes the backstory more direct and rushed. This tightens the plot but loses the slow-burn complexity that made the book's mystery satisfying.

The books spend more time developing relationships between characters. Elizabeth and Joyce have a deep friendship that grows throughout the story, while the movie makes Elizabeth mean to Joyce for no good reason.

Readers say the books have a gentleness and human quality that the movie completely lacks. The moral questions are more complex, and the characters feel like real people rather than stereotypes.

Many fans recommend reading the books instead of watching the movie, saying the books are more engaging that actually make you care about the characters and their problems.

There are multiple books in the series: The Thursday Murder Club, The Man Who Died Twice, The Bullet That Missed, The Last Devil to Die and The Impossible Fortune. The books gets even better as it goes on and you become more attached to the characters.

Richard Osman has followed a steady pattern so far: a new Thursday Murder Club book has arrived every September since the first one in 2020. It's become something of a tradition for fans, who now expect a fresh installment each autumn.

My Review - What I Thought

Watching The Thursday Murder Club was pretty disappointing. While the idea sounded great (older people solving murders!), the execution fell flat in many ways.

The Good Parts

The cast is obviously talented. Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, and Ben Kingsley are all famous, skilled actors. The retirement home looks beautiful with its fancy rooms and nice gardens. Some people might enjoy it as a cozy, comfortable movie to watch on a rainy day.

If you've never read the books this is based on, you might find it mildly entertaining. It's not scary or violent, so families could watch it together.

The Big Problems

Unfortunately, there are way more problems than good things about this movie.

The biggest issue is how boring and lifeless everything feels. The movie is almost two hours long, but it drags terribly. Many scenes feel like they were made for TV. Everything looks too clean and perfect, like a fake TV set rather than a real place where people live.

The mystery itself isn't very interesting or clever. You can guess who the bad guys are pretty easily, and there aren't any real surprises. The plot has tons of convenient coincidences that don't make sense.

But the worst part is how the movie handles right and wrong. Elizabeth makes a deal with a human trafficker (someone who basically enslaves people) and lets him go free, but then she has an innocent Polish worker arrested for defending himself. She also basically allows her dying friends to commit suicide instead of helping them. The movie tries to make this seem okay, but it's actually really disturbing.

The four main characters are supposed to be charming and smart, but they come across as flat and boring. Joyce, who should be one of the main characters, barely does anything except bake cakes. Ibrahim, the psychiatrist, hardly gets any dialogue or interesting scenes.

Elizabeth is supposed to be a tough former spy, but she spends most of the movie running away and hiding. In one ridiculous scene, she needs binoculars to see something happening just 20 feet away from her.

Pierce Brosnan's accent as Ron is all over the place-sometimes he sounds Irish, sometimes cockney, and it's very distracting.

The Polish character Bogdan is portrayed using typical stereotypes, and the actor doesn't even speak Polish properly, which is insulting to Polish people.

The movie looks cheap despite having famous actors. The sets look artificial, like they were built for a stage play. The apartments in the retirement home are unrealistically huge with kitchens that look more American than British.

There are also many plot holes and lazy writing choices. For example, they find the exact grave they need on their first try, which is incredibly convenient. The bad guy Bobby Tanner has blood on his hands in one scene for no explained reason-it's just there to look dramatic.

The ending is probably the most frustrating part of the movie. Elizabeth essentially stands by, while her friends take their own lives, then shows up at their funeral and gives away the dead woman's necklace like it's no big deal. Meanwhile, she protects a human trafficker and gets an innocent man arrested.

This creates a really disturbing moral message. The movie seems to say that some people deserve mercy while others don't, based on totally arbitrary reasons.

Final Thoughts

The Thursday Murder Club feels like a waste of good source material and talented actors. It takes an apparently rich, complex story about aging, friendship, and moral complexity and turns it into a shallow, made-for-TV movie with disturbing moral messages.

The movie is too long, too slow, and too predictable. The characters are flat, the mystery is boring, and the ending is genuinely upsetting. Even people who didn't read the books seem to find it disappointing.

If you're interested in this story, you'd probably be much better off reading Richard Osman's original books instead. They are much more thoughtful and entertaining than this movie adaptation. It's not the worst movie ever made, but it's a major disappointment that wastes its potential and leaves you feeling unsatisfied.

The only good thing I can say is that it might convince people to check out the books, which are way better. Sometimes a bad adaptation can lead people to discover great books, so maybe that's this movie's only real purpose.

If you just want something simple and safe to watch without thinking too hard, you might be okay with this movie. People who enjoy shows like Murder, She Wrote or cozy British mysteries might find this good enough.

If you're not familiar with the books, you won't know what you're missing, so you might be less disappointed.

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