I like movies, but I'm rarely up to date on most current ones. I see, generally, a number of comic book films and rare others (say, something from Christopher Nolan) in theaters. Then I'll watch stuff when it appears on streaming services or whatever. This was largely the case even before staying home with our son full time and the VID outbreak so who knows what the future holds. Will theaters even be around?
My interest when I first saw an ad for Knives Out last year had some wild swings. Ooo that's an impressive cast. Huh, that could be a fun whodunit. Then after big letters displayed: Written and directed by Rian Johnson. Oh. Nevermind. It immediately went from a movie I'd try to watch to one which I wouldn't.
Rian Johnson was the director of The Last Jedi, episode VIII in the mainline Star Wars films. It was critically praised yet universally hated by fans, in quite a major disconnect. I'm certainly part of the fan group here and despised TLJ, which is a major piece of the completely uneven recent trilogy that killed my interest in Star Wars entirely. And apparently I wasn't the only one losing interest after seeing his name on the Knives Out marketing. In subsequent ads over the following weeks, Rian Johnson's name got less and less prominent each time. Seeing them then made me chuckle for that reason alone.
I'm not sure if this played a factor, or it's just that time helps in forgiving, but when I saw the movie on Prime a few weeks ago I was willing to give it a try. Part of the reasoning was I thought my wife would like it after also enjoying the latest Murder on the Orient Express, a similar film and likely inspiration for this one. So we did.
Here's a really quick and spoiler free synopsis. A famous old mystery writer dies and his crazy family converges. The police and a celebrated detective are out to discover what happened. Our main character is a young woman who was the old man's nurse and friend.
And... It was great! With a cleverly put together plot, it contained a number of elements set up early that come back in the end. You think you know what happened the entire time and that's part of the genius. The stellar cast was just that. There were a bunch of surprisingly funny lines, even if some dialogue tried too hard to be trendy (talking about 'social justice warriors' and the 'alt-right' and other terms that'll probably be forgotten in a couple years). Daniel Craig thoroughly amused as detective Benoit Blanc, a southern gentleman and a role I wasn't sure he could pull off. I read afterward he based the voice off historian Shelby Foote, a man we know from Ken Burns fabulous Civil War documentary.
So what I'm saying is (1) you should see Knives Out and (2) Rian Johnson has regained his status as a quality filmmaker. I guess this shouldn't be surprising since he also made Looper, another great film that keeps you guessing. That's just it though, his whole shtick is to surprise the audience. It can work really well in a standalone film but definitely doesn't as only a small section of a larger arc. So while I'm hoping he doesn't get to mess with any major tentpoles again, in the end Star Wars remains Disney's mess.
The trailers for this both show and say too much, as they do for most films these days. I'd suggest skipping them before giving this a watch, if you're so inclined.
Going forward, it's now going to be weird seeing Ana de Armas as a Bond girl in No Time to Die, though I'm sure she'll be great. And hopefully there's more Benoit Blanc in the future. Craig could definitely do it and his commitment to Bond is up. Let's make it happen.
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