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| Daniel Craig, LaKeith Stanfield, and Noah Segan in Knives Out. Image courtesy Lions Gate. |
At the center of Knives Out is a
murder most foul. Legendary mystery writer Harlan Thrombey
(Christopher Plummer) is discovered dead by his nurse Marta (Ana de
Armas) the morning after his birthday party. The suspects are
Harlan's flesh and blood. Could it have been his daughter Linda
(Jamie Lee Curtis), or her husband Richard (Don Johnson), or his son
Ransom (Chris Evans)? Was it Walt (Michael Shannon), or his wife
Donna (Riki Lindhome), or his son Jacob (Jaeden Martell)? Or maybe it
was his daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) or granddaughter Meg
(Katherine Langford)? Everyone has a motive and opportunity, and it's
up to private eye Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, sporting a brilliantly
absurd southern accent), Lieutenant Elliot (LaKeith Stanfield), and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) to
determine what caused Harlan Thrombey's demise.
Saying too much more would ruin the fun
writer/director Rian Johnson has with Knives Out. This movie
is a blast from start to end, zigging and zagging and zigging again
from one deliriously clever twist to the next. Johnson weaves his
tale tightly, providing the audience nearly exactly the amount of
information to make the final big swerve ending nearly perfect. This
is an incredibly difficult trick to pull off in a genre notorious for
hiding vital information from the viewer just for the sake of
maintaining the mystery. That isn't Johnson's style though. Rather,
he employs storytelling and filmmaking sleights of hand to retain a
scintilla of ambiguity, just enough to keep the audience from knowing
for sure what led to Harlan Thrombey's demise. You could watch Knives
Out for days on end to find the little Easter eggs and hints
Johnson throws in to throw viewers off. He borrows liberally from
films like Rashomon and The Maltese Falcon
as little tricks, playing on audience expectations from years of
precedent, only to upend the expectations early on because it's far
more fun to play with a genre than adhere to the rules strictly.
Johnson
fortunately carries over the mystery genre tradition of the terribly
wealthy family being terrible. The characters (and cast by extension)
in Knives Out are an
absolute hoot, dropping bon mots and retorts with the perfect
amount of spite and malice. They are designed to be perfectly
detestable, wrapped up in their world of wealth yet trying ever so
hard to think they've earned anything despite starting at third base.
It is so, so much fun watching these folks squirm during Benoit
Blanc's interrogations or realize everything they'd planned for in
life has gone to pot. The Thrombeys deserve the worst, and yet there
is something sad about the entire affair. The film depicts a family
that long ago gave up on ever actually liking one another,
effectively waiting for their patriarch to die to inherit their slice
of Harlan Thrombey's millions. Johnson's sense of humor doesn't
completely cover the sadness of that scenario; avarice tore the
Thrombey family asunder and nothing can ever repair that lost
connection. Harlan Thrombey's legacy is a family with motive to
murder him, which is both tragic and apropos for a genre dedicated to
greed.
It is easy to read the tragedy in
Knives Out, but Johnson and company are far, far more
interested in putting on one helluva show than reflect on the sadness
of being. This is one of the most purely fun films to come out this
year, balancing entertainment with a fun little mental puzzle to keep
viewers enthralled and engaged in the action on screen. Almost
everything works about this film – from the writing and directing
to the casting and right into the spacing, lighting, and even
costumes. Every little thing in this movie means something, every
frayed thread on a sweater or confused memory leads to something big
and interesting. Knives Out is a piece of exquisite filmmaking
that never fails to entertain its viewers, which is about as high of
praise as a film can get.
Review:
Four and a half out of Five Stars
Click
here
to see the trailer.
Rating:
PG-13
Run
time: 130 minutes
Genre:
Crime
tl;dr
What
Worked: Script,
Acting, Daniel Craig's accent
What
Fell Short: One
reveal is a little too obvious
What
To Watch As Well:
Brick,
Murder on the Orient Express
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