Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Maggie Moore(s)’ on Hulu, a Crime-Comedy Wherein Jon Hamm and Tina Fey Kindle Some Romantic Chemistry

Maggie Moore(s) (now streaming on Hulu, in addition to VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) stacks up the talent in director/Mad Men man John Slattery behind the camera, his fellow Man Jon Hamm in the lead, and co-star Tina Fey (which also marks a 30 Rock reunion, of course). So far so good, but the movie’s direct-to-VOD status is sort of a red flag signaling either A) a vote of no-confidence by distributors and/or streaming services, or B) the general wrongheaded assertion by a cynical movie business that mid-budget comedies for adults are rarely commercially viable. So here we are, determining whether this weirdly under-the-radar release is worth a $6.99 rental or not.

MAGGIE MOORE(S): STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Maggie Moore(s) opens with a (sigh) framing device, but I’m going to forego that for the other wearisome cliche it drops: a title card reading, SOME OF THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Then we meet characters who are not played by Hamm or Fey – Jay Moore (Micah Stock) is a pushbroom-mustached royal dumbass whose stupidity is illustrated by his frequent purchase of lottery tickets. He runs a small-time scam as a franchisee of a sub-sandwich shop, buying expired meat and cheese at a deep discount to maximize his profit margin. Potatoes don’t get any smaller than that, do they? But they’re his potatoes, and when his diner-waitress wife Maggie (Louisa Krause) has had enough of his shit, she threatens to scatter, smother and cover his hash browns, so to speak. So Jay hires a deaf brute named Kosco (Happy Anderson) to scare her, but he overachieves a bit, and winds up making potatoes flambé, pushing Jay from the frying pan into the fire.

Stupidly sloppy metaphor aside: Maggie is dead. And the cop on the case is Chief Jordan Sanders (Hamm), a Chef Lonelyheart’s Soup for One consumer sad-sacking his way through work and evening writing workshops in the wake of his wife’s passing. He visits the Moore household and winds up talking to the next-door neighbor who frequently overheard Jay and Maggie cussing each other out: Rita (Fey) is a lonely divorcee whose self-esteem is dragging in the dirt. Compelled by handsome Chief Sanders and his rumpled hair, she invites him in and all but forces him to sit down to a plate of heavily peppered chicken breast with her. They’re quite the awkward-cute couple of middle-aged frumpsters engaging in mildly witty interactions, so wouldn’t it be nice if they smushed their faces and genitals together?   

Meanwhile, Jay quietly panics. What with one thing and another, he learns that a second woman named Maggie Moore (Mary Holland) lives in town, so he sics Kosco on her, hoping to befuddle Sanders and muddy the waters of the investigation. THE PERFECT CRIME. Sanders and his deputy, Reddy (Nick Mohammed of Ted Lasso), follow leads and puzzle out clues with considerable competence, although I can’t say Sanders is quite so proficient when it comes to his romantic life. Will either plot find resolution? NO SPOILERS, AMIGOS.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Hamm’s presence gives MM(s) a low-key charm similar to his ’22 reboot/rewhatever Confess, Fletch, crossed with a very watered-down update of Raising Arizona.

Performance Worth Watching: Fey and Hamm kindle enough chemistry to make you wish the film would ax the murder-comedy plot and settle on being an offbeat rom-com.

Memorable Dialogue: Deputy Reddy grossly overestimates the competency of their as-yet-unknown perpetrator-of-crimes and buyer-of-lottery-tickets: “Somebody out there is really good at what they’re doing.”

Sex and Skin: Strip-club female nudity.

Our Take: You know what they say: You don’t introduce a busted passenger-side airbag in the first act without reintroducing it in the third. And so goes Maggie Moore(s) – loosely based on a similar murder case, as yet unsolved – a ramshackle charmer that’s too tentative in its tone and approach to dark comedy, and leans on a few lukewarm cliches, but just barely gets by on the charm of its cast. Hamm and Fey interact with understated wit, as do Hamm and Mohammed, who find a little something funny in the margins of their investigation. On paper, the idea of these stars playing characters pursuing a desperate bunglemonkey – well, it sounds like fun, and there is some to be had here. It just never quite rises to its potential.

Slattery’s direction seems uncertain, as if there’s too much to balance here, in the earnestness of the Fey-Hamm romance, in the hapless and pathetic idiocy of the plot’s bad actors, in the details of the procedural. He lands on a tepid middle ground indicating a screenplay in need of a good, focused punch-up. Slattery struggles to develop much tension, and the story doesn’t conclude as much as it mostly just… retreats. It feels like it could’ve been a twisty amusement in the vein of The Nice Guys, but ends up being fat-free sugar-free gluten-free Coen Bros. Coasting on the goodwill of its stars isn’t a bad move while wrestling with a problematic screenplay, and it almost mostly might work, key word being almost. You’re watching this thing for Fey and Hamm anyway, right? That’s what all involved parties hope, no doubt, and it just might almost mostly may be enough.

Our Call: Maggie Moore(s) is middling, but not frustratingly so. I recommend you STREAM IT, but tabling it until it’s free on a streaming service seems like your most prudent option. 

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.