Murder by Death
Murder by Death is a film that is easy to laugh at and easy to like. It is something like Clue meets Knives Out — a broad farce, lovingly rendered, that gathers the biggest detectives of the day (most of whom have survived and or thrived in the public consciousness all of these years) to solve the purportedly unsolvable murder of and/or by Truman Capote.
I can't quite put my finger on why I didn't like it as much as I should have, or why it felt oddly slow considering its 94-minute runtime. Perhaps because it is so explicitly facile. It is not a madcap romp like Clue, nor does it wish to be a serious mystery like Knives Out, nor does it really have fun with metafiction like any of the other films in this genre. It is fun to see these actors clearly have a blast with each other — but it is a spoof, and spoofs make for entertaining evenings and poor cinema.
My favorite individual performance was Peter Falk playing a Sam Spade slash Humphrey Bogart composite. Less for his imitation's efficacy and more because you can see the seeds of Columbo in his affectations.
Would I recommend this movie? If you're bored and have nothing else to watch, and are comfortable keeping your expectations low.