Knives Out Review

Knives Out is the first film Rain Johnson has made since the release of his divisive Star Wars film. His mystery film shows why he gained a reputation as one of the finest writer/directors currently working.

Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) was a successful mystery writer and the patriarch of the Thrombey family who’s found dead on his 85^th birthday. Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), a private detective gets hired to help investigate the death and believes that Harlan didn’t kill himself. Blanc and the police find many members of Thrombey clan had a motive to kill Harlan and his young nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), gets caught in the middle of the mystery.

Johnson was influenced by the works of Agatha Christine when making Knives Out and the film is basically a modern version of one of her stories. His homage’s and subverts the murder-mystery genre.

Knives Out has a set-up that could easily have been used to start a Christine novel. Like Christine’s world Knives Out has a mysterious death in an isolated area where there is a collection of suspects, with a focus on characters that are wealthy, and a brilliant detective who has to investigate the case. Yet Johnson pulls a rabbit out of the hat really early in the film by revealing what really happened. It turns the film from an Agatha Christine story to Rebecca, or to put it another way, a who-done-it to a will-they-get-away-with-it.

Knives Out also references other detective fiction. Sherlock Holmes gets referenced: Blanc has the famous detective’s observation skills and he enlists Marta as his Watson. The film also has elements of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo because it was a lock-room mystery that centres around an unlikeable family – both families even have a member who has far-right views.  This comparison was amplified because of two shared cast members: Craig and Plummer.

The murder-mystery genre has a reputation for being a bit stuffy and designed for older audiences. Johnson injects a lot of life into Knives Out through its camera tricky and editing which gave the film a lot of flash. Johnson ensured that there was plenty of humour to liven the film up. There were witty lines throughout the film, scenarios like the dumbest car chase ever, and a talented cast.

For the mystery to work it needed excellent writing of Johnson: and Johnson supplies it. There was a healthy amount of foreshadowing throughout the film that was beautifully tied at the end.

Johnson does use the family as an avenue to let out his political views. The Thrombey family was absolutely horrid. They were a collection of Trump supporters who complained about immigrants crossing the border, trust fund kids, and hypocrites who claim to be self-made despite having financial support from daddy. These are people who steal and throw words like ‘libtard’ and ‘Nazi’ as insults.  These are people who claimed they care about Marta, but they don’t even know what country her family’s from.

Knives Out has a terrific cast with big names like Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, and Michael Shannon involved. The most impressive members were de Armas and Craig. Knives Out is the second film in two years where Craig plays an eccentric Southern and shows again that he is a strong comedic performer. Ana de Armas had a breakdown performance in Blade Runner 2049 and Knives Out gives her a star-making performance. She stands up toe-to-toe with many of these seasoned actors as she played one of the more grounded characters in a world of outlandish people. One of my favourite moments was when Marta believes she did something catastrophically wrong and has to hide how upset she was.

Knives Out is the second film I seen in 2019 where a woman has an unfortunate vomiting condition.

Knives Out shows that even in a climate of movie franchises and special effects-heavy blockbusters -that all a film needs to be entertaining is good writing and direction.