A
film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Nov. 25, 2019.
There are reasons why Hollywood rarely backs a murder mystery. With its various
narrative complexities, double dealings, and mandatory twists, the genre is
generally unsuited for the constrictions demanded by a two-hour timeslot. As
the PBS TV series Mystery! illustrated, it’s possible to craft a great
whodunnit? for viewing (as opposed to reading) but it typically demands a
longer, more relaxed format. With Knives
Out, however, writer/director Rian
Johnson proves there are exceptions to every rule. Despite being
constrained by the necessary tropes, Johnson delivers an old-fashioned sort of
tale with a modern edge. The approach is more Agatha Christie than Dorothy
Sayers but Johnson obviously loves them both (and likely many others as well)
and his affection for their playground is evident in the way he structures the
story.
For
his follow-up to the divisive The Last
Jedi, Johnson has turned his back on science fiction and returned to the
fields where Brick and The Brothers Bloom found root. It goes
without saying that Knives Out is a
more personal film for Johnson (to the extent that a murder mystery can be
considered personal) and the fun he
has with the subject matter comes across. This isn’t the frenetic, hyperactive
variant we have come to associate with mystery-thrillers. It has a more
contemplative tone and savors its revelations while nevertheless building to a
satisfying resolution. Best of all, it avoids the clichéd you didn’t see that coming conclusion, opting instead for a
resolution that doesn’t require cheap tricks or whiplash-inducing twists to
work. That’s not to say Knives Out lacks
surprises but, when they happen, they’re organic.
In
classic murder mysteries, there are two approaches to how the detective is
represented. He can be a detached force of logic and intuition – the figure who
comes in from the outside to dump the skeletons out of the closet and solve the
mystery. Or he can be as fully-formed as any of the suspects – a character with
his own secrets and desires. Sherlock Holmes or Lord Peter Wimsey? Johnson has
opted for the former. The only things we learn about Benoit Blanc are that he’s
famous, he always solves the case, his dad was a police detective, and Daniel Craig is having a wonderful time
playing someone without a license to kill.
Knives Out’s first corpse
belongs to a famous mystery author, 85-year old Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), whose manner of
death is ruled suicide by slit throat. Blanc, who is consulting with the police, isn’t so sure. He suspects foul play
and hasn’t ruled out any suspects. And there are plenty gathered together in
the Thrombey mansion: Harlan’s type-A daughter, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), her philandering husband, Richard (Don Johnson), and their pugnacious
offspring, Ransom (Chris Evans);
Harlan’s youngest son, Walt (Michael
Shannon), who runs the publishing empire; and Harlan’s widowed
daughter-in-law, Joni (Toni Collette),
and her college-going daughter, Meg (Katherine
Langford). Also in the mix is Harlan’s personal nurse, Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), who has a useful (at
least to the police) trait: if she tells a lie, she becomes sick to her
stomach. There’s ambiguity surrounding Blanc’s involvement, as well: he was
hired anonymously and, although police detective Lt. Elliott (LaKeith Stanfield) is more than happy
for the expert help, he believes Blanc is overcomplicating a straightforward
case.
Blanc’s
modus operandi is straightforward: he re-creates the night of the crime by
meticulous examination of the scene, conducts witness and suspect interviews,
and scrutinizes the physical evidence. He discovers that there’s a hole in the
middle of the night’s activities and is determined to fill that hole. (Later
attempts on his part to expand this doughnut analogy become amusingly
complicated.) Because Johnson shows viewers the real story behind the suspects’ statements, we’re privy to
information Blanc doesn’t have. By the film’s half-way point, we may think we
know what happened the night of Harlan’s death but, this being a whodunnit?,
nothing is sure until the detective submits his final report.
Over
the years, Daniel Craig has shown considerable range when not playing 007 and
his performance as Blanc deserves a place alongside that of Logan Lucky’s Joe
Bang. Adopting a southern drawl and a seemingly nonchalant attitude, Blanc is
the perfectly laid-back American analog of a classic British detective. The
other actors in the play seem to be enjoying themselves as much as Craig, with
Chris Evans delighting in playing a villainous type and Ana de Armas being
disarmingly, charmingly trapped by circumstances and her character’s weak
stomach. Johnson knows how to assemble a rogues’ gallery and, once they’re
lined up, he brings out the red herrings.
Murder
mystery lovers are likely to swoon at what Johnson has accomplished in a little
over two hours. His skill with plotting is matched only by his knack with
dialogue. Knives Out has the whodunnit?
field all to itself in 2019. In fact, the only other filmmaker of note doing
these movies, Kenneth Branagh, is between Poirot titles. (Murder on the Orient Express was last year’s release and Death on the Nile won’t arrive until
2020.) However, even in a crowd of similar titles, this movie would stand out.
It’s exceptional escapist entertainment for those who don’t mind a little spice
sprinkled into their cozy mystery. [Berardinelli’s rating: 3.5 out of 4 stars =
87.5%]
Labels:
comedy, crime, drama
IMDb 79/100
MetaScore (critics=82, viewers=77)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=83, viewers=88)
Blu-ray
Berardinelli’s review
A visitor from space might be forgiven for thinking that the car is the dominant life form on the Earth. Tended by armies of humans who design, manufacture, sell, lease, fuel, service, insure, wash, repair and drive cars, we staff the entire petroleum industry to provide fuel for them, build the highways, roads and bridges on which they travel, the parking lots and garages where they rest, and the race tracks on which they compete. Roughly one in seven jobs are related to cars, so it's easy to imagine a world in which the car really is the dominant life form, each car taking on a unique human personality, and together filling all the roles that humans normally fill. And so we have this entertaining and thought-provoking family film.
