We haven’t had a “locked door” mystery this fun since Murder by Death. Does this genre appeal to a different age? I remember thinking Death on the Nile was a great film. I was young. At the time, I also thought The Spy Who Loved Me was a great film.
Speaking of James Bond, Daniel Craig gets to play supersleuth Benoit Blanc (the Dixieland Hercule Poirot, if you will) and whether or not you agree with his accent, I’d say the man is having the time of his life. I’m getting ahead of myself.
For this movie to work, you need a huge estate (check), large number of reasonable suspects (check), several improbabilities (check), and, most importantly, you need a dead guy who pissed everybody off (check). The corpse is Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer); he’s a scooch more amiable than the standard “you’ll get nothing and like it!” gazillionaire. And yet, we have no problem believing he was done in by one or more of the cornucopia of his guest star relatives: Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette.
There are moments in which you just know you’re in for a fun film. For me, it was when the police got around to interviewing Harlan’s nurse (Ana de Armas) and we realize she blows chunks every time she’s forced into a mistruth. That’s among the most inventive and amusing lie detector tests film has ever seen.
If I have one gripe about Knives Out –a great title for describing a familial viper pit, btw- it’s that the mystery seems to be wrapped up very early what with a case of mistaken medication. I was lulled into a false sense of “hmmm, better just enjoy the ride” rather than continue to solve. Believe me, there is plenty of mystery left even after the case seems wrapped up. For one thing, why has this “suicide” attracted Benoit Blanc? Who invites a gentleman PI to a murder investigation and why? Despite being a murder mystery with blood and evil and all that jazz, Knives Out never stops being tongue-in-cheek. This is a clever film –does Rian Johnson know anything less?—and one you’ll probably see again even when you know whodunit, which is probably the greatest praise I can give a mystery.
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It seems wrong to call a Star Wars director “underrated,” especially since I can remember so little of the Star Wars film Rian Johnson directed. I’m so much more taken with his non-Star Wars films: Brick, The Brothers Bloom, Looper, and now Knives Out. It’s a shame that Rian Johnson’s work here was so politically neutral; this could have been a scathing indictment of trust-fund trash, but perhaps that would have been a different movie. This one was only meant to entertain, which it did thoroughly.
“Inheritance murder” has a pestilential ring
Imagine the evil unchecked greed might bring
For me, I’m lucky
My old age? Just ducky
Few heirs and I don’t own a thing
Rated PG-13, 130 Minutes
Director: Rian Johnson
Writer: Rian Johnson
Genre: Murder by Death
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Inquiring minds
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Inheritance leeches
