“Finding Justice for a Grieving Widow”
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What You Need To Know:
AINSLEY MCGREGOR MYSTERIES: A CASE FOR THE WATCHMAKER is an exciting, fun, family friendly, and humorous story, with first-rate performances. The main cast, led by Candace Cameron Bure and Aaron Ashmore, delivers engaging performances. David Milchard is very funny as a quirky pawnbroker with an English accent. A CASE FOR THE WATCHMAKER has a strong moral worldview. The title character finds justice for a grieving widow. As her investigation moves forward, she also must root out corruption in her small-town community’s government.
Content:
Strong moral worldview about people working with local police to find justice for a grieving widow and root out corruption in the local government, with some positive depictions of businessowners, but one businessowner is corrupt, and another business owner in a business that’s sometimes a little shady says he doesn’t want to be a greedy capitalist taking advantage of poor people;
No foul language;
Someone points a gun at a man and shoots at him before knocking him off a cliff, and his body is found later, someone pushes woman off a cliff, but she grabs a tree limb and is rescued, suspect tries to run but is caught;
No sex;
No nudity;
Brief alcohol use;
No smoking or drugs; and,
Plots to steal things are uncovered, a person sneaks into a place to steal something, and a government official is found to be corrupt, but he’s eventually arrested.
More Detail:
The movie opens with a man, Mark, meeting a mysterious figure in the woods one night. The mystery person gives him a watch, then Mark returns the way he came. However, he doesn’t get too far when another unknown person points a gun at him, then pushes him over a cliff next to a waterfall.
Cut to 10 years later. Ainsley McGregor, a former criminologist from Chicago, has solved two murders in her hometown, Sweet Water, Texas. Her brother, Ryan, is the county sheriff and her boyfriend, JT, is the local fire chief. The second scene opens on Ainsley starting another meeting of her book club. The club wants to solve another mystery together, bit they think it’s better if they solve a cold case, where they’re less likely to get into trouble. One of them picks the mysterious death of Mark above, but they don’t realize that Mark’s widow, Maria, is one of their fellow club members.
Maria is upset about her husband’s death being picked as the first cold case. She never accepted the coroner’s report that her husband, Mrak’s, death was an accident. She always thought someone murdered Mark. Maria also thinks someone may have murdered Mark for a family heirloom found on his wrist, a fancy watch made by his grandfather before he escaped to America from Russia.
Ainsley comforts Maria and tells her they don’t have to pick Mark’s case as their next mystery. However, Maria decides that she could use the closure. She also feels Ainsley can figure out the mystery.
So, Ainsley, JT and the club members start investigating the case. Ainsley’s brother, Sheriff Ryan, reluctantly goes along with it. He realizes he can’t stop Ainsley from investigating something once her interest is piqued. He cautions her, however, about keeping a low profile.
Originally, Ainsley thought that investigating a cold case would be safer than investigating a current case. However, her investigation puts her life in danger. It also threatens the careers of her brother and her boyfriend, since the mayor is Mark’s shady sister who’ still upset that their grandfather left the fancy watch to Mark instead of her.
AINSLEY MCGREGOR MYSTERIES: A CASE FOR THE WATCHMAKER is an exciting, fun, family friendly, and often humorous story, with first-rate performances. The main cast, led by Candace Cameron Bure and Aaron Ashmore, delivers engaging performances. David Milchard is very funny as a quirky pawnbroker with an English accent who provides some valuable clues for Candace’s character to consider. In a hilarious scene, he takes umbrage at his little business being called a “pawn shop.” “This is not a pawn shop,” he tells Ainsley and JT. “This is a junkyard of dreams.”
Mystery novels, movies and television programs are best when they have a sense of humor. NCIS was the Number One program on TV for 20 years not only because of its exciting plots, but also because it had lots of comedy, including funny dialogue between the main characters. This was true of many mystery programs, movies and books before it. For example, popular TV detective programs in the 1960s, 70s and 80s like 77 SUNSET STRIP, BURKE’S LAW, THE ROCKFORD FILES, MAGNUM P.I, and SIMOM & SIMON gained a following partly because of their humor and quirky characters. Even the British spy thriller, THE AVENGERS, whose stories often centered on mystery plots, depended on its comedy and quirky characters, including the funny repartee between its two spies, John Steed and Emma Peel. Furthermore, where would the hardboiled detective movies and novels of the 1930s and 40s, and beyond, be without the comical, smart-aleck attitudes of their heroes? Family moviegoers need look no further than the comedy in the highly successful animated ZOOTOPIA 2 about a fox cop and a rabbit cop investigating another case to see this comical formula play out on the big screen in a most unlikely place.
So, it’s really good to see the Ainsley McGregor series from Great American Media using a strong dash of humor to enliven its story.
A CASE FOR THE WATCHMAKER has a strong moral worldview. The title character, Ainsley, who consults part time for her brother in the county sheriff’s office, is trying to find finding justice for a grieving widow. As her investigation moves forward, Ainsley also must root out corruption in her small-town community’s government. As in most other detective fiction, from Sherlock Holmes to Thomas Magnum, solving the case helps re-establish moral order in the world at large, including the family. This is true even when the ending is not so rosy.
