The Kid Detective

As a pre-teen, amateur sleuth Abe Applebaum gained notoriety in his small American town for being a formidable case-cracker. Now 32 and down on his luck, Abe (Adam Brody) is given a shot at redemption when a high-school student (Sophie Nélisse) asks him to investigate her boyfriend's murder. But as the case unravels, Abe is forced to confront the responsibilities of adulthood, and the spectre of past failures. With The Kid Detective, first-time writer-director Evan Morgan sets a breezy neo-noir tone that occasionally veers towards the whimsy of Wes Anderson. However, he keeps a tight rein on a plot full of surprises, and Brody is perfectly cast as the dishevelled gumshoe - his wisecracking "Philip Marlowe for the 21st century" recalls the character Brody played in TV's The OC. With Wendy Crewson and Jonathan Whittaker also putting in good turns as Abe's parents, the film delivers as a comedy crime caper with darkly subversive overtones.