Murder Of A Cat (2014)

An immature young man (Fran Kranz), a case of arrested development, lives in his mother's (Blythe Danner) basement with his pet cat. When the cat is murdered and the police don't give it the priority he wants, he decides to find the killer himself. What he finds is that his cat was leading a double life and that his killing is only the tip of a very dangerous iceberg. This oddity of a film can't quite seem to get a handle on what it wants to do: partly comedy, partly thriller, partly quirky romance. Kranz's character is a real idiot and more than a little annoying so its hard to get much sympathy for him. If only an actor with some charm had played the protagonist. Indeed, all the sympathy goes to Danner as his mother for having to put up with this overgrown baby. The motive for the cat murder is fairly easy to guess but to the film's credit, it keeps twisting and turning before we get the full reveal. Not a bad little movie as such but falling far short of its potential. The writing is there but the execution is bumpy. The feature film debut of director Gillian Greene, who happens to be the wife of Sam Raimi (SPIDER MAN) who co-produced the movie. With J.K. Simmons, Greg Kinnear and Nikki Reed.