In the spirit of film reviews–which I love to do because I have opinions on everything–I watched another movie the other day.
My mom and I were scrolling through Netflix and we saw the preview for this film called Brazen. Now, the two of us could tell that it wasn’t a SUPER high budget film or something blockbuster or anything, but we thought it would be mindlessly decent.
Boy, oh boy, were we wrong.
Brazen is a film about a woman named Grace McCabe (Alyssa Milano) who is a world-famous murder mystery author. She writes books and she doesn’t ever let you hear the end of how much she writes about murder. The film starts with Grace leaving after a book reading to go visit her sister Kathleen, who’s in the middle of a super rough divorce. The neighborhood isn’t super fancy or anything, but Kathleen lives next door to a conveniently handsome convenient detective named Ed Jackson.
Now, Grace and Kathleen seem close and they have a nice relationship as sisters do occasionally. However, Kathleen has a deep, dark, super crazy, super deep and dark secret. She’s a high school English teacher.
I’m kidding, that’s not the secret.
She’s actually a dominatrix on this online camgirl/boy website thing called Fantasy inc. Kathleen thinks it’s super safe and provides the workers super good anonymity. As we find out however, this couldn’t be far from the truth. Kathleen is murdered suddenly and now it’s up to Grace to figure out who did it.
Now, Brazen has a pretty generic murder mystery plot. It’s nothing insane or crazy. The film was generic and cliche in its ending. It didn’t keep me guessing and I literally figured out the murderer’s identity within the first second he showed up on the screen. We were supposed to be guessing who it was, but it was literally the most obvious thing ever.
Brazen did little to engage me in its boring plot. Firstly, its main character was the biggest case of self-insert in a story ever. Grace continued to drone on and on about how she could solve the mystery because somehow, writing books about murder makes you an expert on the subject. Yes, you heard me: She literally used the fact that she’s an author to get on the case. Not only that, but it seems like everybody and their grandmother has read her books from cover-to-cover. Unrealistic for sure.
Apparently, the conveniently handsome detective and the police chief have read her books. Wow. Amazing. Is there anyone in this world that hasn’t read Grace McCabe’s generic murder mystery books?
Look, I’ve had my fair share of wine mom murder stories, but the ones I read were actually good and kept me excited. This movie was just boring. It really was. I skipped most of it just to see what happens, but it kept going on for what felt like centuries.
Now, as you most likely guessed by now, Grace and Ed get into a relationship with each other and it was really cringe so I’m not going to talk about it for more than this one sentence I just typed up.
After Kathleen’s murder, another girl from Fantasy inc dies because we gotta keep the plot and action intense and wild, you know what I mean?
Now, Grace is super convinced the entire time that Kathleen’s husband did it or ordered someone to do it. But, here’s the thing: It was horrendously obvious that it wasn’t him. I mean, the dude was portrayed like some sort of terrible person, but he was literally just trying to raise his son. Kathleen and him were apparently divorcing because she had issues with drug addictions and whatnot, and the court wouldn’t give her custody. I understand the decision on the court’s end. Typically, if one parent is struggling with addictions, they aren’t going to leave the child with said parent.
People with drug addictions can be dangerous, neglectful, and could harm others or themselves if they don’t seek help. Plus, her side-hustle certainly proved itself to be unsafe. I can’t blame the father for wanting to keep his son away from that.
Now, we go to the pish posh private school that Kathleen teaches at. It could be the janitor, it could be tall student with rich dad who turns out to be gay, or it could be the son of a senator. Or…maybe it’s someone else!
Turns out it’s the senator’s son. He was a psycho nut who preyed on his English teacher and was obsessed with her. Weirdest crap I’ve ever seen.
Yeah, anyways, to wrap this terrible film up: They find out it’s the senator’s son by laying a trap where Grace pretended to be her sister on the website and did some weird stuff that I skipped ahead of because I prefer to not need to power wash my eyes out.
Brazen was an all-round cringe fest. There was not a single part of the plot that made me feel engaged at all. The film was clearly low-budget and probably made within a lunch break. The plot moved so fast that if you blinked, you’d probably miss it. The characters were unengaging and annoying, and Grace herself was one of the most unlikeable protagonists I’ve ever seen in a movie.
If you wanna write about murder mysteries, you can do that, but there’s a difference between poor writing and good writing. Apparently, Brazen is based off of a book by Nora Roberts. Honestly though, after watching that gigantic mess of a terrible film, I have no clue if I should expect anything good from that book.
I think the thing that annoyed me the most was the idea that Grace somehow could solve a murder simply because she writes books about the subject. Look, I write about military stuff. Does this mean I’m an expert on all things military? Did I serve in Afghanistan? Was I a mercenary at some point in my young 19 years? No, no, and no. I write stories. I’m a storyteller. An author. Grace didn’t have a background in investigating or in police work or law or anything. She writes books. That’s literally it. Just because authors write a lot doesn’t mean they’re experts.
Yeah, anyways, the movie sucked. It felt like a discount Hallmark film about the dAngErOuS inTerNet or something stupid like that. Don’t watch it. At all. If you like your sanity, just stay away from this film at all costs.
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