Mystery abounds in brilliantly fun Knives Out

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

Last Jedi an unpredictable adventure

Daisy Ridley in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Image courtesy Disney.

Star Wars as a franchise has always worked best when hope is challenged by impending darkness. Hope without challenge is meaningless; hope needs to be earned through tribulation to be worth a damn, the bleakness countered by faith in one's friends, allies, and one's cause. Star Wars: The Last Jedi favors that ambiguity, putting its heroes in a desperate situation, with only their hope and faith in one another and their cause to lean on. The film rarely provides assurances that the hope they have is justified, that it will result in a happy ending for all involved. It's also why this movie is the first Star Wars entry in three decades to feel unpredictable.
This is a very good thing. The new Star Wars needs to separate itself from 40 years of cinematic history to be worth anything going forward. The only way to continue producing interesting stories is to take risks, through a few curveballs into the very well-established formula and keep the audience guessing on how the fate of the Star Wars galaxy will go. The nostalgia that carried The Force Awakens (which earns justifiable criticism for aping A New Hope) and influences Rogue One won't last forever; younger audiences need their own characters to like. Instead of recreating what worked before, writer/director Rian Johnson takes a few chances with Last Jedi to take some ownership of the material and ensure this isn't a carbon copy of Empire Strikes Back.
Last Jedi shares a few traits with Empire Strikes Back, notably by showing the rebels in their darkest moment. Hope is really the only thing Resistance members Leia (Carrie Fisher, RIP), Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega), Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), and Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern) have as they try to escape the evil First Order led by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Hope is what pushes Rey (Daisy Ridley) to the ends of the galaxy to recruit the bitter Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to the Resistance cause. Hope comes despite the Resistance being hopelessly outgunned by an impending force of destruction and despite little evidence that the soul of Kylo Ren can be saved from the dark side.
As the film makes clear, hope is a tough thing to hold onto. As the Resistance gets closer and closer to its destruction, its members have to be reminded frequently to maintain their hope and faith, to not succumb to the daunting odds mounting against them. Last Jedi is the rare Star Wars film to not adhere blindly to that sense of hope though; even for characters from a galaxy far, far away that aren’t technically human, it remains natural and vital even to question one's faith. Hope is put on trial, the characters weigh the faith they have in themselves, their friends, and their cause, and the process to a verdict is painful and dangerous.
Johnson does a lot of house cleaning in the two and a half hours of Star Wars time he has to work with. The puzzle box concept J.J. Abrams crammed into The Force Awakens is stripped away, to the great benefit of the franchise and for audiences frustrated by the that movie’s unnecessary ambiguity. The key mystery in that movie is granted a simple resolution that serves as a reminder of how greatness can come from even the humblest of beginnings. The victories earned by the Resistance are always Pyrrhic, good enough to render hope from but still damaging for a cause that can't afford to lose that much. The Last Jedi fights against the supposed goodness of the Jedi as well, doing more to question the wisdom of the Jedi Order than the prequels did in three movies. The Last Jedi makes a very convincing argument for ending the Jedi line; it's only Rey's hope in what the Jedi could accomplish that makes the Jedi Order possibly worth redeeming.
There remains some value in the old ways for Rey and the Star Wars franchise. Last Jedi posits a need for legends and heroes to inspire faith and hope to spur a rebellion against an unrelenting evil. The past is there to serve as a guiding light for the present, to give the new characters a path forward in the darkness as they find their own way toward salvation. As it is for the franchise too, which slowly but surely will separate itself from the past and find some hope of its own.

Review: Four out of Five Stars



Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13
Run time: 153 minutes
Genre: Science Fiction

Ask Away

Target audience: The legions upon legions of Star Wars fans who will make Disney a whole ton of money this month.

Take the whole family?: Families will bring their kids regardless because Star Wars, but this could bother some of the really young kids. The length might also turn them away.

Theater or Netflix?: The effects are more than good enough to deserve a cinema trip. Whether it's worth paying for the 3D and IMAX is up for debate.

Where does this rank on the Star Wars pantheon?: Last Jedi still doesn't hit the mark of either Empire Strikes Back or A New Hope. I do put it ahead of the prequels, The Force Awakens, and the very good Rogue One, and as an adult I find Last Jedi to be more interesting and complex than Return of the Jedi.

Watch this as well?: Enough of the Star Wars franchise is good enough to merit another watch, especially Empire Strikes Back. Also check out a couple of writer/director Rian Johnson's previous works, Brick and Looper.