A Murder for Three isn’t so much a whodunit, although murder is involved, but rather a whereisit. And it’s a delightful one at that.
A Murder for Three (Ubiystvo na troikh) centers on three friends and the misadventures they get into after they become entangled in not just one murder but two.
It all starts when soon-to-be-divorced teacher Irina (Alla Yuganova), unlucky-in-love artist Katya (Ekaterina Kopanova), and sexpot business owner Zhanna (Yuliya Takshina) head off to a spa for a bit of r&r, courtesy of one of Zhanna’s clients.
Meanwhile, two men kidnap a mob minion and demand a ransom of five million euros from Li Fan (Georgiy Pitskhelauri), the Chinese mobster he works for. Only the money delivery goes sideways, just as Li Fan suspected it would.
The two threads converge when Irina, Katya, and Zhanna discover a dead man in their room at the spa.
Olga (Anna Peskova), the deceased’s accomplice, puts a new plan in motion, one that unbeknownst to the three friends involves them, while others of Li Fan’s lackeys are pursuing Olga.
When the gal pals start catching on to what’s happening, Katya and Zhanna turn to Irina, an inveterate reader of crime novels, to use her mystery-story-solving skills to figure things out, while Irina enlists the help of the private investigator who saved her from harm to do the same thing.
The question they and the criminals want the answer to: Where is the missing money?
Produced and aired in Russia as a four-part miniseries, A Murder for Three has been edited down to a two-hour, English-subtitled movie for stateside audiences. As such, certain details are left out and the continuity isn’t as fluid as it is in the original three-hour version, but the storyline is still easy enough to follow. So viewers who’d like a lighthearted and comedic mystery without blood and violence should check it out.
A Murder for Three is currently streaming in the US on Prime Video.
__________________
Add your comments on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
Share this post/page.