Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: David S. Cass Sr., Via Vision Entertainment.
Cast: Dick Van Dyke, Barry Van Dyke.
Solving crimes is not only a lot of fun, but it also comes easily for Dick Van Dyke. He starred in the hit television series titled Diagnosis Murder. Now, he reunites with his son, Barry, in this popular made-for-TV mystery.
It’s very much a family affair as Dick is also joined by his grandsons Shane, Wes and Carey. Who knew solving crimes could be so much fun?
Dr. Jonathan Maxwell (Dick) is a criminology professor who helps solve crimes, as luck would have it, usually because they happen directly in front of him. He takes care of the more analytical part of crime solving.
Mike Bryant (Barry) is a former cop who becomes a private detective after ‘being blackballed from the precinct’. Bryant sees him as a father-figure as his father was a close friend of Maxwell. He takes part in more of the action and chase scenes of the mystery solving.
Ben Manners (Shane) is Mike Bryant’s nephew who is studying to be a lawyer at the same college as Maxwell. However, after seeing his uncle at work, he is looking to become a private investigator. He brings more of the technological aspects to sleuthing.
Created by Dean Hargrove, this double mystery pack contains two films. In the first If Wishes Were Horses, Maxwell is called upon to help when a prize racehorse is kidnapped. As it goes missing before an important race, Maxwell decides to look into the incident. However, the case turns deadly when a member of the family that owns the horse dies in a suspicious fire. What the case yields is a family embroiled in jealousy and greed.
Dick Van Dyke plays the role well as an absent-minded professor, who helps Mike to investigate the disappearance.
In the second film, The Locked Room Mystery, Maxwell and Bryant try to solve the mystery of the murder of a New Age spiritualist.
Samuel is a spiritual healer with a large and influential following. When he locks himself in a meditation chamber with four students, only to turn up dead with his students still deep in their meditative trance, it’s time for the professor to figure out the why, how and who!
