Pierce Brosnan is a college professor who teaches a creative writing course that requires students to actually write a plausible murder scenario. A complication is that the prof himself actually wrote a book implicating a friend in a murder, for which his friend is found guilty and sent to prison. There is a twist at the very end of this really good-cinema quality-movie that has had only passing reference here among the User reviews, so this critique seeks to explore that twist in more detail.Spoiler A number of reviewers have mentioned the twist at the end without specifying whether they are alluding to the conventional penultimate twist-the one we never suspected-or the finale in the last 30 seconds leading up to the credits.One reviewer found this the same device as in Chicago Joe and the Show Girl, but in fact that movie was content to keep jiggling the fourth wall. Murder101 does not do that until the last moment, where the wall is not merely jiggled but sort of turned into the conceptual equivalent of a time-loop. It seems the outer movie, the one we are watching on our screens, is but a tableaux to present a movie-in-the-making, a movie that lo and behold was based on a screenplay developed from the murder-assignment of one of the Prof's students, who plays an integral part in the piece himself.I can't think of this as nothing so much as a cinematic analogue of Escher's mutually drawing hands. Everyone character in the movie is in fact also an actor playing... their own part, and to make that clear at the close, the dolly-shot backwards reveals not merely the set boom-mike, but some of the 'dead' victims as very well and alive.This leads to a furious amount of re-thinking, after the movie, of everything presupposed, including plot-'holes' (eg. It had bothered me that the clever student had a cast-iron alibi-he was giving a presentation, at the time of Francesca's death, so the Prof had let off his suspicion; so why did he re-adopt his suspicion later on?), yet are these holes in the movie itself? Or are they defects in the self-referencing 'student's' self-referencing assignment-turned-movie script?And it would explain something that bothered me: the student had written an absolutely STELLAR assignment; probably the most block-buster assignment any undergrad had ever written anywhere, ever. I was expecting with its impending cover-page reveal to see an "A+". Why only an "A"? Because a few... plot-holes?

Pierce Brosnan plays Charles Lattimore, a crime writer/college lecturer who assigns his students the task of writing the perfect crime. Shortly thereafter, one of the students is found murdered, and Lattimore becomes the main suspect.The film's underlying premise is fine. The main problem here is that the film has a fairly high "fluff" factor. Its elemental, no frills screenplay, perhaps the result of budget constraints as a TV movie, makes the film seem shallow, too casual, and of low import. There is nothing wrong with fluff films, as they can be very entertaining. But some viewers dismiss them as unworthy of attention. In addition to having a plain vanilla screenplay, "Murder 101" contains some creative humor at the end, which further amplifies its fluff quotient. The result is that some viewers perceive the film as a spoof, or satire, of the murder mystery genre.But I found "Murder 101" to be a viable whodunit puzzle worthy of my time to try and solve. The plot does contain a few flaws, but they do not detract from the overall effect. Clues to the identity of the killer are very subtle, as one would expect in a good whodunit. One seemingly irrelevant scene is actually a major clue to the killer's motive.Viewers looking for razzle-dazzle special effects, innovative cinematography, fabulous costumes or set design, or unusual cinematic gimmicks will need to go elsewhere. What "Murder 101" offers is a basic, but nifty, whodunit puzzle. It will take all of your analytic skills and cunning to figure out the correct solution. And, if you're like me, you will really like that exit scene with actress Dey Young. It's a nice final touch.

Of the Murder thrillers out there, there's nothing bad about this excellent mystery. Peirce Bronson is excellent. As are the others. Also it has a great surprise ending!!!

Slick whodunnit keeping the viewer wondering which of several suspects committed a series of brutal slayings. At more than one point I had the killer all figured out only to have my brilliant deductions dashed to bits. In the end I really had my brilliance dashed, what a surprise! This reminded me of another film I saw several years ago with a similar surprise ending.