Maggie Moore(s): What are Jon Hamm and Tina Fey doing in this ill-advised murder comedy?

You know you’re in trouble when the title doesn’t work.

“Some of this actually happened,” announces an early intertitle. Mary Lou Morris and Mary McGinnis Morris didn’t know each other. But in October 2000 they were both murdered by a hitman, some 5km apart in Houston, Texas, leading to much speculation among true-crime aficionados.

Was the first murder a case of mistaken identity or was the second committed to cover the murderer’s tracks? These unsolved twin crimes are the inspiration for this ill-advised comedy.

Despite changed names and details, surviving family members have objected. Fair enough. Maintaining a giddy tone through murder and mayhem is a tricky business, even if the Coen brothers can, on occasion, make it look easy. Maggie Moores(s) is way off the pace, however.

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Jay Moore (Micah Stock) is a small-town ne’er-do-well running a sandwich franchise and selling expired goods. When his wife, Maggie, discovers that Jay has paid off his dodgy supplier with child pornography she calls time on the marriage. He counters by hiring a deaf brute named Kosco (an intimidating Happy Anderson) to scare her. Maggie’s charred remains are soon discovered by baffled local authorities, including the widowed police chief, Jordan Sanders (Jon Hamm), and his wisecracking deputy, Reddy (Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed).

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Meanwhile, Maggie’s curious and divorced neighbour Rita (Tina Fey) takes an interest in both Jordan and the murder, a fascination that is piqued by further killings.

Working from a script by Paul Bernbaum, John Slattery, who also directed the likable Philip Seymour Hoffman vehicle God’s Pocket, can’t reconcile a cacophony of incongruous tones. It’s a romance in which a desperate woman attempts to throw herself off a building; it’s a horrific true-life crime story that makes awkward merriment with a cheesecake crumb on a date’s face; it’s a comedy featuring a burnt corpse and a sinister workplace Nazi.

Hamm’s wistful central turn and some lively support from Mohammed and Nicholas Azarian (playing a put-upon sandwich maker) only make one wish their talents were employed elsewhere.

Maggie Moore(s) is on limited release and on Sky Cinema Premiere from Friday August 4th