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. The movie is all revolving around the death of a mystery novel author, and detectives inspecting it as a murder, I can't go into details without spoiling, DO NOT let the. Knives Out review – a deliciously entertaining whodunnit ‘Everything is set up and sneakily signalled in the opening moments’: Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer, Don Johnson and Michael. Nov 25, 2019 'Knives Out' has quite a starry cast and lots of death. Jamie Lee Curtis. Slashed throats. This whodunit is an A-list-turned. Review: Ingenious and irresistible, ‘Knives Out’ is a criminally good time Ana de Armas and Daniel Craig in the movie “Knives Out.” (Claire Folger / Lionsgate). REVIEW: Knives Out Is a Satirical Whodunit Against the Death of the Author. Knives Out, director Rian Johnson's follow-up to The Last Jedi, is a scathingly funny murder mystery that's endlessly rewatchable.
As the days of 2019 dwindle down to a precious few, we’re unlikely to see the year produce a more richly entertaining film than the splendid comic whodunit “Knives Out” (Lionsgate).
Though writer-director Rian Johnson’s ensemble homage to Agatha Christie — and the big-screen adaptations of her work — is strictly for grown-ups, it provides a brainy and satisfying movie.
The case at hand concerns the death, in the wake of a family party on the night of his 85th birthday, of famous and wealthy crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer).
The police officers assigned to investigate, Lt. Elliott (LaKeith Stanfield) and Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan), insist Harlan killed himself. But shrewd Southern detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who has been hired by an anonymous client, has other ideas.
Benoit, whose Francophone — presumably Cajun — background is a tip of the hat to Christie’s famous Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot, seeks answers among the eccentric members of Harlan’s conflict-ridden clan. And, unsurprisingly, it turns out that virtually every one of them (played, among others, by Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson and Toni Collette) had a reason for wanting the old man dead.
As he tries to navigate his way through this morass of competing motives, Benoit enlist the help of Harlan’s caring and sensible Latina nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas). Marta makes an excellent witness and guide to events because she has an unusual medical condition: she cannot tell a lie without getting sick to her stomach. Yet even Marta’s role in the mystery is not what it initially appears.
Clever twists and turns, worthy of Christie herself, abundant humor and sly social commentary make Johnson’s movie a dandy treat. There is a hard edge to the proceedings, though, since so many of the figures on screen are grasping, entitled, selfish and perpetually quarrelsome.
Those qualities are, of course, being satirized. Yet at least some viewers may not care for the company of such ethically impoverished characters. There is also at least one important aspect of the story requiring mature discernment — another good reason, along with thematic and vocabulary considerations, to steer kids elsewhere.
Still, in the end, good triumphs over evil and Johnson handles this final development just as deftly as he treats the rest of his material. As a result, there’s a particular relish to the wrap-up. Call it the sweetly moral cherry atop the flavorful cinematic sundae that is “Knives Out.”
The film contains brief gory violence, a morally complex situation, drug use, sexual references, about a dozen profanities, a few milder oaths, a couple of rough terms, frequent crude and crass language and an obscene gesture. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
— John Mulderig
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Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” unravels not just a good old-fashioned murder mystery but the very fabric of the whodunit, pulling at loose threads until it has intricately, devilishly woven together something new and exceedingly delightful.
For all the detective tales that dot television screens, the Agatha Christie-styled whodunit has gone curiously absent from movie theaters. The nostalgia-driven “Murder on Orient Express” (2017), popular as it was, didn’t do much to dispel the idea that the genre has essentially moved into retirement, content to sit out its days in a warm puffy armchair, occasionally dusting itself off for a remake.
But Johnson has since his 2005 neo-noir debut “Brick” shown a rare cunning for enlivening old genres with densely plotted deconstruction. He makes very clever movies (“Looper,” “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”) that sometimes, like in the madcap caper “The Brothers Bloom,” verge on showy overelaboration, of being too much.
But in the whodunit, too much is usually a good thing. Give us all the movie stars, plot twists and murder weapons you can find. When done well, there is almost nothing better. And “Knives Out,” while it takes a little while to find its stride, sticks the landing, right up to its doozy of a last shot. The whodunit turns out not only to still have a few moves left but to be downright acrobatic.
The film begins like many before it: with a dead body that needs accounting for. Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), a bestselling mystery writer, is found with his throat cut in a small upstairs room in his sprawling Victorian mansion. Production designer David Crank deserves much credit for the film’s fabulously ornate and much-paneled setting — a Clue board come to life and a home that could rival the modernist abode of “Parasite” for movie house of the year.
Thrombey is extremely wealthy with an expansive family of spoon-fed, entitled eccentrics that would likely mix well with the dynasty of HBO’s “Succession.” And as much intrigue as there is about Harlan’s death, for his children there’s even more about his inheritance. There’s his relator daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her cheating husband Richard (Don Johnson), a vocal Trump supporter; his son Walt (a sweater-wearing Michael Shannon) who runs his father’s publishing house; lifestyle guru daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette); and his playboy grandson Ransom (Chris Evans), the black sheep of the family.
There are others, too, most notably Harlan’s trusted caregiver Marta (Ana de Armas). The Thrombeys casually refer to her as “the help” and, in a running gag, are all over the map when it comes to her native South American country. A deeper political dimension slowly takes shape as the family’s cavalier indifference to Marta plays a role in the movie’s unspooling mysteries. Juggling themes of class privilege, immigration and ethnocentricity, “Knives Out” is a whodunit for the Trump era.
Some mysteries first submerge themselves in set-up, the crime in question and the entrance of its central detective. Johnson is too restless for such an approach. He favors flashbacks, by the boat load, to go along with elaborate plot mechanics of reversals and perspective switcheroos. That gives “Knives Out” a somewhat clunky and imperfectly paced first act, something Johnson makes up for with the payoff of his finale. But for a movie with so many fine actors having so much fun, we get surprisingly little of the Thrombeys as a whole.
Instead, our detective calls almost immediately. Enter Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), a flamboyant Louisiana investigator of such renown that he’s already been profiled in the New Yorker as “the last of the gentleman sleuths.” Even with such immaculate set dressing all around him (the mystery writer’s house is decorated throughout with murder weapons, including a throne of knives), Craig still manages to chew plenty of scenery with his heavily accented Southern-style Poirot. One calls him “Foghorn Leghorn,” another “CSI: KFC.” He’s accompanied by another detective (an underused Lakeith Stanfield) but he quickly makes Marta his sidekick; she has a useful aversion to lies, throwing up every time she tells one.
There isn’t much that isn’t knowing in Johnson’s dialogue. He delights in playing by the genre’s rules and remaking them at once. There are winking references here to “Hamilton” and “Baby Driver,” and “Knives Out” more than once risks being overwhelmed by self-satisfaction.
But “Knives Out,” in the end, believes earnestly in the whodunit, it just wants to turn it inside out. To say more about that would spoil the fun. But keep an eye here, and elsewhere, on de Armas. The “Blade Runner 2049” actress (soon to be seen in the next James Bond film, also with Craig) isn’t the biggest star in a film awash with A-listers. But with neither cloak nor dagger, she seizes “Knives Out.” It’s hers.
“Knives Out,” a Lionsgate release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for thematic content, some disturbing images and strong language. Running time: 126 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
Christian Review Of Knives Out
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MPAA Definition of PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
Catholic Review Of Knives Out
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Ebert Review Of Knives Out
Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP