What if Encyclopedia Brown never grew up? That’s the general idea behind “Mystery Team,” the debut feature from internet sketch comedy troupe, DERRICK, about a group of teenage detectives still solving the same pedestrian mysteries that they were at age seven. There’s Jason (Donald Glover), master of disguise and leader of the Mystery Team; Duncan (D.C. Pierson), the boy genius; and Charlie (Dominic Dierkes), the strongest kid in town. The only thing is, Jason’s disguises aren’t very good, Duncan’s so-called knowledge comes from a book of “1001 Wacky Facts,” and Charlie isn’t so much strong as he is unbearably dim-witted. But when a neighborhood girl hires them to solve the case of her parents’ murder, the Mystery Team take on their very first adult crime set in the dangerous world of sex, drugs and swear words.
One of the more buzzed-about films coming out of 2009’s Sundance Film Festival, “Mystery Team” all but vanished from the public eye after its premiere, instead earning a limited theatrical release before finally getting dumped onto DVD. So what went wrong? For starters, the film simply isn’t as good as some may lead you to believe, with only a handful of funny moments scattered throughout 94 minutes of juvenile toilet humor and long stretches of tedious plot development. Donald Glover (easily one of the best things about NBC’s “Community”) is certainly amusing as the leader of the group, but his fellow co-stars never earn a single laugh. Maybe the guys of DERRICK are better off sticking to what they know best, because while “Mystery Team” might have made for a hilarious short, the laughs are too few and far between to warrant a full-length feature.
