One of the biggest surprises of the year…for some. I always had high hopes for this film, and It surpassed every single expectation I had. It is a little weird to go from one of the biggest film franchises in history to a completely original whodunnit. To be fair though it may have been the right move, I can’t imagine a star-studded cast working with a director who did not have a fantastic career thus far. This film, which I will dive into in a second, is top form for a director
who made the movie he wanted to make. It would have been easy for Johnson to go from Starwars to Marvel or Star Trek, whatever other big action movie he wanted. Instead he wrote an entirely original script and forged his own path, not to mention revitalizing a genre at the same time. With more A-list actors than I can remember, a fantastic script and Daniel Craig doing a southern accent this movie is a production fantasy, as well as a production nightmare at the same time. I can’t imagine getting Craig and Evans on set at the same time, not to mention the plethora of other talent that have entire lives happing besides their acting careers. Speaking about actors, a whodunnit can only be as good as its characters, and each of these characters is textbook. This movie literally looks like a clue movie. It basically is a clue movie. That means each character is smart and all but also have one quirk that makes them interesting, a few times is becomes their only character trait. You would think that feels shallow, a character being reduced to one trick or one flaw. Surprisingly it doesn’t feel shallow at all, it definitely doesn’t feel deep, but I don’t think this movie requires deep and thought-provoking characters. I think this movie instead requires and deliver characters that we are curious about for 10 minutes at a time, as soon as the discussion changes, we can forget about them and be enthralled with the next character. The main character, Marta, is probably the character that feels most one-note, her entire schtick is puking whenever she hears a lie or tells a lie. This is revealed very early on in the film, so she takes on the role as a human lie detector. The human lie detector spends about half her time following around the detective and the other half in a mixture of covering up her crime and inadvertently helping Chris Evans character cover up the crime her committed. That was confusing, let me explain – Marta thinks she killed Harlan, the patriarch of the family and multibillionaire. Marta is in no way related to Harlan, she is just a third-party caretaker, everyone else in this film is related to him in some way. Marta gives Harlan some drugs one night because, well, he’s old. She gives him the wrong stuff by accident because she accidently switched the vials. Upon recognizing this Harlan immediately realizes Marta will be accused of murder, and technically she did, so he tells her this plan and then kills himself in order to give Marta the best chance of getting out of this ordeal unshaved. The only problem with this is Chris Evans character changed the labels on the vials so by accidentally switching them Marta accidentally saved his life. OK, we all up to speed? Chris Evans tricks Marta into helping him cover his tracks. Evans is the only person Marta tells about the accidental murder. This makes it incredibly easy for Johnson to build suspense. He shows a flashback scene on how Marta made her escape. Then a present-day scene on the detectives back tracking that same position. It is elegantly simple, the other half of the movie is the innovative part, going around town trying not only to cover herself but to find out who hired Daniel Craig in the first place and later trying to understand who knows her secret. Convoluted on paper, makes complete sense on screen. Apart from the three main characters, everyone else is decently thought-out, like I mentioned before they all have their one quirk that makes them important in the story. They are also points especially towards the beginning of the story when the secondary characters act as a mob of sorts all working towards one goal, taking the will away from Marta. The vast majority of acts one and two take place at Harlan’s mansion with the exception of a few exposition scenes and two scenes that feel out of place. The burning of a research lab most importantly. This feels weird because you realize a bit later you understand Chris Evans burned the lab. The only problem is it feels like a major step up from previous attempts at stopping the investigation, don’t get me wrong it makes sense in the context of the story. He explains why, he basically had to get rid of the DNA from the crime scene – or something like that. Here is my problem with that, every single action he takes prior to arson he takes small steps, as small as possible to stop the investigation. See he was very far removed from the family prior to the incident so it only makes sense he is removed from the family afterwards as well, the little interest he takes in the will is already scrutinized by the family, anymore and he would be a primary suspect. In the third act of the movie it all comes to fruition Marta the Detective and Evans are all in the same room, the truth comes out and Evans attacks Marta with the knives you see in the trailer. Turns out its literally the only fake knife in the bunch. You see, this entire movie is comedically timed perfectly. It knows exactly when to make jokes, and you never see them coming. Knives out is great. It is a shining beacon for cinema disconnected from franchises, unfortunately there is already a sequel in the works and a franchise deal is already in the works. Too bad Knives Out will eventually become the very thing I wanted it to stand up to. But if a new franchise needed to be born, this is the best movie
to start with.
Comments