Hallmark serves up a sparkling new crime comedy, “Tipline Mysteries: Dial 1 for Murder,” where stolen jewels and witty banter take center stage. Chris McNally and Holland Roden head the film. Roden plays Maddie, a hotel concierge with a hidden passion for solving mysteries. By night, she transforms into a tipline journalist, gathering intel from anonymous sources and feeding it to the police. Meanwhile, McNally portrays Detective Beaks, a recent top-of-the-class graduate who’s eager to prove himself on the force. Unknown to Maddie, her go-to contact, Officer 219, is none other than the ambitious Detective Beaks himself! Will this unlikely duo, a tipster with a nose for news and a rookie detective with a point to prove, crack the case and bring the jewel thieves to justice? Tune in to find out!
Spoilers Ahead.
Tipline Mysteries: Dial 1 for Murder (2024) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis
The film starts with a night guard walking around a strip mall, where he sees some movement inside one of the stores. When he goes to look for it, someone shoots a dart at him, making him unconscious. By the attire of the attacker, it looks like a robber, and 3 weeks later, we are introduced to Maddie, working as a concierge in the Region Kingsley Hotel. She has a brilliant instinct for making things work, and we see a prime example of it: how she just changed the room numbers to please one of the guests without even bothering about anything.
Also, Maddie works in a basement as a journalist who is always active on the tip line so that if anything goes wrong around the city, she can deliver the message to the police. However, when she delivers news like cats being stolen, the present detective, Grazier, does not take her seriously, which sometimes frustrates Maddie. On the other hand, Officer Beaks has been promoted to Detective. Now he will be handling homicides, which has always been one of his dreams when he started.
How do Beaks and Maddie meet?
He is seen talking to Toby, a young boy whom he likes to look out for. Beaks goes by the number 219. Maddie, who has installed this app that catches radio chatters from the police walkies, finds that Officer 219 is active in making the arrest. Because 219 has just made an arrest, she thinks that the city is safe with officers like him. Grazier retires, and Beaks takes his position in the department when Maddie receives an anonymous tip line call saying that a jewelry store is going to be robbed tonight.
Maddie calls Grazier, but Beaks sees that it is the Free Press calling, so he avoids the call. Maddie then goes straight to the police station and finds Beaks in Grazier’s place. At the station, Maddie excitedly relays the tip about a potential jewelry store heist. However, she’s met with a different face behind the desk. Grazier, her usual contact, has retired. Undeterred, Maddie spills the details. The problem? Without a location, caller description, or even gender (the voice was distorted), Beaks, the newly minted detective, deems the tip too vague to act on. He argues they can’t warn every jewelry store in town.
Later that night, Joseph Trimani’s jewelry store is robbed, and he is shot with a dart, just like before. Except this time, Joseph Trimani is dead, and Beaks comes to investigate the crime scene. Maddie comes to the scene as well. But Beaks removes her from the scene because she does not have permission to roam around in a crime scene like that. Anyway, little does Beaks know that soon Maddie is going to be a helping hand in solving this Trimani case.
How does Maddie Become a Reserve Officer?
As time progresses, Maddie and Beaks start their own way of finding the truth behind Trimani’s murder. Maddie also searches for the missing cat, which was reported earlier. She thinks that this might lead to a link that may connect it with the murder mystery. They all try their own methods when Captain Nyland comes with the toxicology report that says that the dart with which Trimani was shot contained Xylapreen, a kind of tranquilizer used for pets.
Right at this moment, Maddie has also come up with the information that the robbery from weeks before, where a night watchman was shot with the dart, contained the same tranquilizer in it. Maddies suggests that there is a pattern, and the same person is involved in both cases. Nyland received a call earlier where she was told that the police had already received information about a jewelry store that would be robbed, but they did not take it seriously. So, to ease the situation at hand, Nyland offers Maddie the position of Reserve Officer.
Regardless of what Beaks thinks of her, he soon starts admiring her instincts and how she has gathered so much information basically on her own. She has also given him information about Beltram securities and how they can be connected to this robbery. One of the owners of a store named Luke makes a suspicious call to someone right after Beaks interrogates him about the person who has installed the security system in Trimanis’s shop. They learn that Nick is the guy who installed the security system. He also used to be Luke’s son-in-law.
What do Maddie and Beaks learn from Nick?
Following the pattern of the robber, Nyland soon comes up with the few jewelry shops in town that are situated inside a strip mall. Maddie and Beaks have already discovered how the robbery took place as they find a hole in the wall. The robber never appeared in the CCTV camera because the person never used the entrance. The robber just made a hole in the store attached to Trimani’s shop and entered through that. When they go to the attached shop, they find a stolen ring from before and learn that it was sold by Nick.
Nick becomes the prime suspect. They luckily find him while he is installing the safe for a store that is going through a renovation. Nick is being questioned about a stolen ring or dart thing. But honestly, they do not have anything to hold Nick for long. However, one thing becomes certain: Nick is not involved, at least not directly, in this crime. Maddie’s intern has found out that the call made that night was a woman’s voice. With a bit of scratching, it is revealed that the call was made by Luke’s daughter, Olivia.
Tipline Mysteries: Dial 1 for Murder (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Is Toby Involved in the Robbery?
While talking to Olivia, Maddie and Beaks find out that the day Trimani’s store was robbed, she went to talk to Nick, her ex-husband, about child support. Nick, Toby’s girlfriend, was staying at Amanda Bly’s house. Beaks had gone to the house before to interrogate Nick. But he had not found him at that time. Now, Olivia says that she overheard Nick talking about stealing some jewelry from a store. However, before she could find out more, Toby opened the door.
Soon after, a big plot twist happens: Beaks finds out that Marcella, Joseph Trimani’s wife, is a vet and has direct access to Xylapreen. Being his wife, she also knows what medicines Joseph used to take and how Xylapreen could be deadly for him. But when she was interrogated, nothing suspicious came from her. Later, Beaks goes to Amanda, asking about Xylapreen and whether Nick has asked her to steal some on his behalf.
Amanda leaves the store, giving Beaks the keys to her house and locker. Subsequently, Beaks finds the dart gun and the darts inside one of the lockers. Seeing that, Toby, who took over Amanda’s shift, runs away from the scene. Later, Beaks catches him. Toby ran away because he did not want to get caught in the middle, and he really wasn’t involved in the crime. However, Maddie has her own suspicions and goes to the store from where they caught Nick earlier.
Who is the Real Killer?
Maddie calls Officer Tran about suspicious activity in one of the jewelry shops that is under renovation. Her phone switches off right after that, and she decides to go in without waiting for backup. She catches the robber in action, but before she can do anything, the robber attacks her. Beaks has already received the voicemail from Maddie and arrives at the spot. Together, they finally catch the robber. It is none other than Amanda. Amanda even threatens to shoot darts at Maddie, but Maddie’s instincts somehow save the day for both her and Beaks.
Amanda explains that she needed the money for her studies. Since her ankle broke, she also lost her hopes of getting the scholarship. Without money, she couldn’t have continued her studies, and all her dreams would have been shattered. Amanda is arrested, and Captain Nyland personally thanks Maddie for her contribution. Beaks later explains that every time Nick installs one of the safes, Amanda puts on one of his uniforms, pretending that she works for the security company.
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She goes back to the store saying that the company has forgotten to write down the serial number of the safe. During that process, she installs motion-activated mini cameras inside the safe. The cameras are so small that if no one is actually looking for them, they are sort of invisible. So, whenever someone enters the code, she records it and later robs the safe quite easily. She even got Toby the job at the store so that when she is caught stealing the Xylapreen, she could easily pin that on him.
The film ends with a surprising reveal: Officer 219 is Beaks! As the dust settles on the case, a new possibility emerges – a romance blossoms between Maddie and the detective. Beaks also learn that the unsolved mystery of the missing cat is now solved and that too by Maddie without any help from law enforcement. This makes Beaks look at Maddie with the kind of admiration that Maddie has always sought. It is Maddie, without whom Beaks would have required much longer time to solve the crime. Could he solve it single-handedly? Well… that’s pretty hard to tell.
