Treble Me This

Directed by Guy NIcholls

2024

Treble Me This is the sixth short film written and directed by Guy Nicholls and this murder mystery will leave you scratching your head as we bear witness to three crime scenes. But could the victims be linked?

Well, we begin our journey alongside Christian Dapp as Frank Winters, a heavy smoking and drinking detective who shows up at a country manor hotel to investigate the discovery of two dead  bodies.

As he interviews a hotel maid, we are told of a mysterious man in black and some weird jelly baby sweets found nearby as he scribbles all these clues into his notebook. He then visits two more locations where a knife and gun lay close by and as the bodies stack up, the intrigue deepens.

From crime scene photos, investigating potential witnesses and an almost silent detective, the director uses traditional genre staples we’ve seen before, but this does help pull you into the mystery early on.

The use of voiceover with little dialogue shows good use of visual storytelling and provides a wealth of detail as to how we got here - but is it a little too much? There’s almost 10 minutes dedicated to the background of the situation, which wears a little thin but the information provided is key to the plot, even if a bit overabundant and dragged out.

Back at a (very underlit) police station, Winters chats to his shady colleague Bill Cotton played by Lennon Widdows. And Nicholls wisely moves from his static back-and-forth conversation camera set-up to cleverly constructed flashbacks filling in even more gaps.

An excellent supporting turn from Midlands Movies Awards winner Emily Drewett as another hotel maid is a joy to watch. And she, along with her partner, discuss an expensive painting, and as the chat moves on to expected inheritance, it is revealed as a possible motive for at least one of the crimes.

But as she lies about her work, a man warns her partner she is not what she seems and the suspicions between all these characters begin to rise.

Treble Me This certainly provides a lot of food for thought. The acting is great but it’s very exposition heavy. The film tries its best with flashbacks, voiceovers and discussions but there’s a lot to wade through I found. 

The structure could do with some tightening too. The set up means we kind of jump from the introduction to the end without really a second (dramatic) act. The film however provides its own chapters and its announcement of Act II at 28 minutes (of a 38-minute film) again suggests a front-heavy structure that could do with a trim here and there.

But the final section is where the fun really starts. Whatever preconceptions or theories we’ve arrived at by this point are upended as the filmmaker discloses the real reasons behind this set of circumstances. Which I won’t spoil here other than to say it was a very well put together part of the film which reminded me of Memento as certain revelations upend previously shown scenes. Great technique.

Treble Me This is a stylish police mystery with many positive aspects. I also thoroughly enjoyed the odd bit of dark comedy - including a pug painting, frog alarm clock and an important owl statuette.

And although the exposition is heavy, that’s quite common with the genre and the director does their best to try and make the convoluted story understandable. Nicholls use of excellent cinematography, interesting narrative techniques and a devilish string score all help set the right atmosphere.

But as it portrays cases of mistaken identities, there’s no mistake that Treble Me This has all the aspects of the best whodunits with a well-put together cast and plenty of secrets to solve.

★★★★

4 / 5

Mike Sales