Knives Out directed by Rian Johnson is a modern-day whodunit which gives us glimpses into the bygone era of classic mystery movies. It also serves as a character study of the multiple characters in the plot.
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Daniel Craig in a whodunit!? When a crime novelist dies just after his 85th birthday, an inquisitive detective arrives at his estate to investiga. I went to an early screening of knives out, the trailer looked really good but it did not do the movie well at all, this movie was one of the best movies I have ever seen.
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“Knives Out” bills itself as a whodunit mystery, and to a degree it is, but the “it” in question isn’t what it appears to be. The advertising has let it be known that the film revolves around the death of wealthy mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) from an apparent suicide. This being a mystery movie, I went in ready to ask who killed Harlan and staged it to look like a suicide. At the very least, I really hoped that the movie wasn’t going to take the route where Harlan actually killed himself just to make idiots out of people who suspected murder. But it turned out that I had fallen for just one of the movie’s many misdirections. The mystery of the film isn’t so much about who was responsible for Harlan’s death, but more about who hired renowned private investigator Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to investigate the death, who is interfering in Blanc’s investigation, and of course the why of it all.
The suspects are primarily in Harlan’s family since they were all at Harlan’s mansion for his 85th birthday party. Daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a real estate mogul with a cheating husband (Don Johnson) and an obnoxious, spoiled son named Ransom (Chris Evans). Son Walt (Michael Shannon) is the soon-to-be-ousted CEO of his dad’s publishing company. He and his wife Donna (Riki Lindhome, whose underuse is one of the film’s biggest blemishes) have a son named Jacob (Jaeden Martell) who heard Harlan arguing with Ransom at the party over the elder’s will. Conniving daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) was caught embezzling money meant for her daughter Meg (Katherine Langford) and both were about to be cut off. Even Harlan’s mother (K Callan, who is six years younger than Christopher Plummer) may be a factor.
There is one more major player, one who’s not in the family. Marta (Ana de Armas) was Harlan’s kindhearted caretaker. Harlan had a natural love for his family, but he respected Marta more than all of them. It’s easy for the police and Blanc to question her because she’s physically incapable of lying, reacting with violent illness if she does. She’s allowed to tag along in the investigation since she’s an insider who knows the family. Although the little-known de Armas is rather shunted to the side in much of the film’s advertising, Marta is so important that it’s not a stretch to call her the main character of the movie.
One expects a mystery movie to be filled with twists and turns, but I must reiterate what a sharp turn this movie takes around the one-third mark. It basically eliminates the “whodunit” aspect that I was eagerly anticipating, which negatively affected my enjoyment of the middle of the movie, only for the ending to reveal that there was a whodunit element all along. I can’t believe I watched that earlier scene and thought that everything was as it seemed, though I was right to think that something about Harlan’s health seemed… wrong.
If you see “Knives Out” strictly for the mystery, you’ll probably be disappointed, though that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll leave disappointed. Instead, just enjoy the ride with the affable de Armas, the crazy, dramatic family (though they aren’t in the movie as much as the advertising makes it look), and especially Craig as the eloquent sleuth who’s maybe read a few too many of Harlan’s detective novels. I thought the movie sometimes went too long between laughs, but when it delivers, they’re some of the biggest of the year. The death and the events surrounding it are a bit nonsensical and definitely convoluted, and I can think of a better solution to a key problem that would have saved everyone a huge headache and maybe a life or two (email me at rrg251@nyu.edu if you want to hear my idea, though my response will definitely contain spoilers), but overall this is a fun movie because of the things that work.
Grade: B-
Knives Out Movie Review Common Sense Media
“Knives Out” is rated PG-13 for thematic elements including brief violence, some strong language, sexual references, and drug material. Its running time is 130 minutes.
Robert R. Garver is a graduate of the Cinema Studies program at New York University. His weekly movie reviews have been published since 2006.
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Posted on November 25, 2019 at 5:11 pm
B +| Lowest Recommended Age: | High School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for thematic elements including brief violence, some strong language, sexual references, and drug material |
| Profanity: | Some strong language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking and drug use |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Murder mystery with graphic and disturbing images |
| Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
| Date Released to Theaters: | November 26, 2019 |
| Date Released to DVD: | February 24, 2020 |
You know those murder mysteries where a big rich family all gathers in a big gothic house and someone gets killed and everyone has a motive and we get a bunch of red herrings (often the initial suspect is the second murder victim) and then the detective gathers everyone in the drawing room at the end to lay out all of the possible scenarios and then point dramatically at the surprise perpetrator? Those mysteries are sometimes called “cozies.” “Knives Out” is both a loving tribute and a cheeky meta-take on this genre from writer/director Rian Johnson and an all-star cast clearly having the time of their lives. It is deliciously nasty, seasoned with some political jibes, a ton of fun and anything but cozy.
It takes place in a magnificently gothic mansion correctly described by a character as something out of a Clue game. The owner is wealthy mystery author Harlan Thromby (Christopher Plummer), his name a likely nod to the classic Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story. “Knives Out” is literal — there is a huge “Game of Thrones”-style ceremonial seat decorated with daggers — and metaphoric, as a family of unpleasant heirs needle each other as they strive for the patriarch’s favor, meaning his money.
Just after the family has gathered to celebrate his 85th birthday party, Thromby is found dead, his throat cut, an apparent suicide. The suspects are: his daughter Linda (Jamie Leigh Curtis), her husband Richard (Don Johnson), their son Ransom (Chris Evans), Thromby’s son Walt (Michael Shannon), who runs Thromby’s publishing company, Thromby’s daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette), the widow of his late son and the proprietor of a pretentious “wellness” company, Thromby’s nurse Marta (Ana de Armas), the daughter of an undocumented immigrant. Other possible suspects include Harlan’s dotty mother Greatnana (K Callan), Walt’s wife Donna (Riki Lindhome), their alt-right teenage son Jacob (Jaeden Martell), Joni’s college-student daughter Meg (Katharine Langford of “13 Reasons Why”), and Fran the housekeeper (Edi Patterson). Thromby’s son, daughter, and daughter-in-law think of themselves as successful entrepreneurs but in reality they are subsidized by Thromby, who has no illusions about their business acumen or their expressions of affection.
A cop (Lakeith Stanfield) accompanied by a state trooper (Noah Segan) starts asking questions. And then one of the suspects asks a question: Who is the man who has been silently sitting in the back, listening to everything that is going on? It is legendary “last of the gentleman sleuths” private Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), whose ridiculous name is matched by his honey-dripping Southern drawl, compared by one character to the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn (a caricatured rooster inspired by the caricatured Senator Claghorn on the old Fred Allen radio show). The first mystery is that he does not know who hired him to be there. He just received an envelope with cash inside.
We get a chance to see some illuminating flashbacks that let us in on some of what has happened before the detectives or the family know. And we get to know them better, especially Marta, repeatedly referred to patronizingly by the family as “one of the family” but no one can seem to remember which Spanish-speaking country she and her family come from. Marta is of special value to Blanc because she is a human lie detector, at least about her own truthfulness. If she does not tell the truth, she involuntarily projectile vomits. (Really.) She has a few secrets that she is desperate to conceal, especially after a motive is revealed. Characters make and break alliances as it seems no one can be trusted, and what is revealed just shows us how much more we don’t know. The twists and turns will keep you guessing until the end and the unexpected barbs of satire make this as delicious as the fictional Thromby’s best-sellers.
Parents should know that this is a murder mystery with some grisly and graphic images, some strong language, family conflicts, drinking and drugs.
Family discussion: Which character did you suspect and why? Why did Thromby make that decision about his fortune?
If you like this, try: the original “Murder on the Orient Express,” “And Then There Were None,” and Rian Johnson’s other genre-bending films “Looper” and “Brick”
Knives Out Movie Review Guardian
Knives Out Movie Review Imdb
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