Rendezvous at Midnight: A Cluttered Mystery Worth the Headache

Is this thing worth your time?

If you like old-school detective movies where everyone is hiding a secret and talking way too fast, yeah, give this a spin. It’s got that specific 1930s snappy energy that feels like a caffeinated stage play. Don't bother if you need your plots to actually make sense, though. Some folks will find it charming; others will just want to throw their remote at the screen.

The whole thing starts with a guy who honestly deserves to be dead. He’s blackmailing people, acting smug, and just generally being a nuisance. Then, surprise—he’s dead. The setup is simple enough, but then it gets weirdly crowded with people who all seem to have a reason to want him gone.

There’s this one moment where a character confesses to the murder before the guy is even dead yet. It’s bizarre. Like, did she forget what day it was? Or maybe she just wanted to get ahead of the paperwork? The movie doesn't really explain it, and honestly, I stopped caring about the 'why' after the second act.

The pacing is all over the place, too. Sometimes it feels like an episode of 13th Alarm where the urgency is cranked up to ten, and other times it just sits there, letting characters stand in rooms and stare at curtains. It’s not quite as polished as Sherlock Holmes, but it’s got way more personality than your average filler flick.

Bits and bobs I noticed:

• Edgar Kennedy is doing that thing he does where he looks perpetually annoyed, which is always a win.
• The dialogue is so fast you’ll miss half of it if you sneeze.
• There’s a scene where someone walks into a room and I’m pretty sure they didn't know where to stand, so they just kind of leaned against a wall for three minutes.
• The lighting in the office scenes is suspiciously dark, like they were trying to hide the fact that the set was built out of cardboard boxes.

It’s not a masterpiece. It feels a bit like someone took a bunch of leftover scripts from Mixed Nuts and mashed them together. But there’s a certain, I don't know, honest messiness to it that I actually enjoyed. It’s not trying to be a deep, soulful look at humanity. It’s just trying to solve a murder, and failing at it in the most entertaining way possible.

By the time they reveal the killer, you’ll probably have forgotten who half the people in the room are. Just roll with it. It’s better that way. 🕵️‍♂️