A review of the recent movie “Knives Out”
When “Knives Out’ was released at the cinema, it was both a commercial and a critical success, but I was not sure that it was the film for me. However, when I was subject to lockdown in the coronavirus crisis, I wanted something light and entertaining and decided to have a stab at this old-fashioned ‘who done it?’ murder mystery both written and directed with verve by Rian Johnsone.
I found it fun but (perhaps inevitably) very contrived. The original set-up is simple enough: successful and rich 85 year old American author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead, supposedly by suicide, but information from a succession of family gatherings at his grand home increasingly confuse the picture.
A particular delight of the movie is to see Daniel Craig, whom we so associate with the role of James Bond, playing southern sleuth Benoit Blanc and Chris Evans, so often the clean-cut superhero Captain America, as the family’s ‘black sheep’. Other familiar actors include Don Johnson, Toni Colette and Jamie Lee Curtis.
So it is very watchable although hardly special. Nevertheless, it seems that is not the point and that “Knives Out 2” is being unsheathed and Blanc is back.