Waste of time

A Major Disappointment

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

***SPOILERS*** Aurora Teagarden isn't my favorite TV detective, but her movies are usually watchable. This one is by far the worst. The story did start as an intriguing mystery, however, it totally unwraps as it moves a long. Aurora and Martin seriously obstruct justice when they hide a witness who was on the premises where a murder and a supposed kidnapping were committed and when he appears to be the most probable suspect. Then they let him escape, and then they capture him again. Law enforcement doesn't seem to mind, although Arthur does slap his forehead and Lynn frowns at one point early on. Aurora and Sally continue to interfere when they interview a midwife, who is also possibly complicit in the murder, tipping her off to the investigation. Totally annoying. Nearing the end, a shooter is shooting at Martin, Aurora and the witness in the house and wounds both Martin and the witness. We, nor Aurora, have any idea how badly they are hurt, although the witness is unconscious and Martin, who was clearly shot in the chest, says he's going into shock. Seems kinda serious. Conveniently, Martin has previously said his phone is dead--and all at once Aurora remembers she left hers in the car. Unknown whether the witness has a phone... So no one can call 911. The shooter comes into the house, acting innocent, although Aurora and Martin both recognize him. For some unknown reason, he doesn't shoot anyone again but wanders across the street to "get his first aid kit" and conveniently disappears for a good while. Why did he shoot at them in the first place if he had no interest in killing them? Unarmed Aurora then leaves the house over Martin's objection to follow the shooter and, instead of getting her phone or asking another neighbor to call an ambulance and the police, crosses the street and finds Martin's niece who has been kidnapped in the neighbor/shooter's basement. She could get into the basement, but she and the niece had a time getting out.... During all this mess, the neighbor's wife kidnaps the baby from the house (how did she get in anyway?), and Aurora hears her on the baby monitor, which must have a HUGE range, since Aurora was across the street at the time. How convenient to have a baby monitor in her pocket but no cell phone...Apparently, the niece, who was the baby's mother, was kidnapped until she would reveal where she had hidden the baby. Early on, the kidnapper's wife found out that Aurora and Martin had the baby, so why were they keeping the mother alive? They were planning to take the baby way on a car trip, but surely they knew she would tell the police before they could get very far. They had no problem killing the baby's father but, of course, not Martin's niece. Made no sense.Other reviewers have mentioned Aurora's treatment of the newborn baby. She cavalierly passed him around from person to person, and at the end of the show told Martin she has decided she wants to have his babies although they aren't engaged and she has indicated only relief that he hasn't proposed to her. Also, it turns out, the niece made a wonderful mother even though she had said she and her husband weren't ready for children and they had tried to sell their baby?? Isn't that a crime?Yannick Bisson and Lexa Doig are wonderful actors. I just wish they had a better vehicle.

There is at least one scene in the movie where the baby is being put to sleep and Aurora and her mother use a blanket to cover him instead of a baby sleeper bag. Babies, esp. newborns, are not to be covered up with a blanket due to the possibility suffocation. I am surprised, and concerned, that this was overlooked. The movie itself is a typical Hallmark movie mystery, easy to watch and no worry about language or content.

Two things about this Aurora Teagarden story. First she spends minimal time at the library and none at all with her mystery book club. Secondly she makes several false starts in trying to figure this business out before she gets it right in the final half hour.Candace Cameron Bure is back as our mystery solving librarian and her relationship with Yannick Bisson is going good and strong. But the two of them really play fast and loose with an obstruction of justice charge. In fact they conceal the presence of a person of interest in the case and get him shot later on because of it.It all starts when an old friend of Bure's Sarah McKillip arrives with a husband and a baby and Bure agrees to put them up. Later on McKillip disappears, the husband is killed and she's left with the baby. And a mystery to solve.It all has to do with black market babies and the intricate lengths people will go to avoid the lengthy adoption process. But in the end Bisson and Bure decide that their babies will be done naturally.

I enjoy the Aurora Teagarden series, but this last movie was not my favorite. It was a remake, plot line and all, of the 2003 series 'Mystery Woman "Oh, Baby"' with Kelli Martin. In this version, Aurora comes off a little self-absorbed over the caring of an object, the baby. She transfers 'it' to everyone else to look after. The comparison was stark. Then, at the end, she tells Martin she would want to have his babies...they aren't even engaged! This one was not as developed as "Head over Heels" in plot and character. I gave it a 6 because I won't repeat watch it. I love that Lynn is now Chief of Police and working out the dynamics between her and her husband, Arthur, at work was good.This is my least favorite Aurora Teagarden, followed by "Real Murders'... once you see them there is nothing to want to see them again. The other Aurora movies have lots of plots, intrigue and characters that are worth watching over.