The Kid Detective (2020)

(On Cable TV, June 2021) As someone who likes deconstructive fiction, there’s an immediate hook in the challenge that The Kid Detective sets up for itself: Take a contrived literary archetype (the kid detective, solving petty crime in idyllic small-town America) and send it crashing into reality. Twenty years after his heyday, the bright kid detective has become the laughingstock of the community, still with an office where “Kid” has been removed and fed jejune cases by concerned citizens. There’s some darkness in the interval as well: the community not liking the truth that a detective can bring up; culprits angry at having been caught; and most of all, the disappearance of his best friend, a case still unsolved after two decades. As we catch up with the boy hero (played by Adam Brody), he’s a substance-abusing, self-loathing, waste of genius — still in his hometown, not having evolved much in the interim. But as with all fallen heroes, the chance to redeem himself comes up when a young woman asks him to work a new case: a murder. What follows is a small-town detective story with plenty of small surprises and tweaks at a familiar formula. The ending is just as twisted as the rest of the picture, with a huge victory not leading to much more than a mental breakdown. Writer-director Evan Morgan does really well, with a tone similar-but-different to films such as Brick. Decent dialogue, good sequences, small laughs and an ending that’s not quite easy are all there to keep our interest up and engaged. The Kid Detective quickly goes from “what a quirky concept” to something much more satisfying.