Harlen Thrombey (Christopher Thrombey) is a best selling murder mystery writer and founder of a tremendously successful publishing empire. He is also dead. Looks like a suicide – at least, that’s how local police detective, Lieutenant Elliot (Lakeith Stanfield) sees it. He is undercut somewhat by celebrated southern fried goofball private eye, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). His keen mind senses something is not quite right. Whodunit? Or, Whodidnotdoit? Either way, it looks like the fun has only just begun.
And there is plenty of fun to be found in “Knives Out.” The cast of familiar faces is a blast to watch. They fight, fume and lie their privileged asses off with solid comic timing and just enough dramatic heft to keep the film from going full on silly.
Whodunit? Was it Harlen’s daughter, Lynn Drysdale (Jamie Lee Curtis), the successful real estate mogul who built her business from the ground up? Or, was it her bro Walt Thrombey (Michael Shannon), to whom Harlen gave the keys to the kingdom before cruelly snatching them back the night before he met his gruesome fate? Or was it son-in-law playboy Richard Drysdale (Don Johnson) whom Harlen discovered was cheating on his beloved daughter and whom Harlen told, the night before his death, that he planned to share his discovery with her? Or Joni Thrombey (Toni Collette), Harlen’s widowed daughter-in-law and good hearted, yoga-meditation-skin creme slingling lifestyle guru who Harlen told, again, on the night before his death, that he was planning on cutting off from a very generous monthly allowance? Or was it his asshole grandson, Ransom (Chris Evans), or his sweet and caring nurse, Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armes), or Fran (Edi Patterson), the housekeeper who found him or maybe it was Meg Thrombey (Katherine Langford), his granddaughter or…well you get the idea.
Clearly, writer-director Rian Johnson is a big fan of the genre and delights in dishing out red herrings and reveling in the peculiar ways of Benoit Blanc and his persistent, drip, drip, drip approach to investigation. And Craig is a goofy delight as Blanc – part Poirot, part Clouseau – an outsider with a drawl who is immediately made aware of just how outside he is when Ransom dismisses him as, “CSI-KFC.” Craig is so good that, just as was the case in “Logan Lucky” (2017) – where he also played a goofball from the southern states, though, much more advanced in his goofballery – you can’t quite believe that this is the same guy who has been playing James Bond for the past decade plus. Blanc is to Bond what overalls are to tuxedos; what kool-aid is to the finest of champagnes. Yes, but he plays both with flair and an obvious love for the craft of shedding one skin for another.
Yet, for a murder mystery, it sure is skimpy on the clues. Writer/director Johnson stuffs our faces full of misdirection – as any murder mystery should – but, the problem is that we know too well that it is misdirection. As the running time is padded with an extended sequence that is clearly the reddest of red herrings, we grow increasingly annoyed and impatient. And, the big reveal, the “Whodunit?”, triggers a reaction that is more, “Oh…okay,” than “No way!”
What does work is the not so sub subtext. Rian Johnson is clearly no fan – neither am I – of a certain figurehead who lives in a much celebrated house, partially built by African-American slaves, which is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Even DJT’s famously hilarious line about being a self-made man who only received one small loan from his father, in the amount of $1 million dollars, is used to swat away one of the Thrombey children’s ridiculous claims that they are self-made. More significantly, the entire film – from top to bottom – is one long laugh at the white 1% who have mostly inherited their wealth and, yet, persist in perpetuating an illusion of self-invention and self-realisation. Thrombey’s children and their spouses refuse to see themselves as they truly are and, in doing so, make their indifference to the suffering of others all the more certain. At one point, a fireside discussion about what it means to be an American and whether one has to do it the “right” way or not cleverly plays as a proxy conversation of what it means to be a Thrombey and whether one has to do it the “right” way or not. Not coincidentally, the character most passionately making the argument for the “right” way is a Thrombey by marriage only. So much for boot straps and legal ports of entries and such.
The true star of the film – and yet another punch to the face of pale America and their no-nothing, sociopath of a leader – is Ana de Armes. Born in Cuba, having lived in Spain, de Armes is the Latina middle finger to all the red hat wearing folks who also choose to embrace Trump’s nakedly xenophobic ways. She is terrific as Marta – Harlen’s nurse and only trusted companion. Born elsewhere, far away from the goldmine in which the Thrombey children were raised, Marta is poor, lives with her sister and mother in a small apartment, and has more kindness in her heart than the entire Thrombey clan combined. Ana de Armes is perfectly cast as Marta. Small and cute as a button, de Armes has no trouble bringing out the warmth and humility of her character. And, then, when things start to heat up, de Armes convincingly adds a drop or two of spunk and grit. She’s part-teddy bear, part-grizzly, and the Thrombey clan would do well to take notice.
There are secondary pleasures present in “Knives Out” for those with long enough memories. Frank Oz – yes, Yoda/Fozzie Bear/Miss Piggy himself – pops in for a brief bit as the executor of Harlen’s estate who reads the will to the assembled Thrombey clan. And, veteran character actor M. Emmet Walsh, now 84, turns up as the Thrombey estate’s eyes on the front gate who’s technological tools of the trade are hilariously stuck in the days of top loading vcrs and cathode-ray tubes.
Flawed as a murder mystery, yet fun and enjoyable as a skewering of the white establishment and the lies they tell themselves to prop up their own sense of self-importance, “Knives Out” is entertaining enough to keep you watching, but marred by enough weaknesses to make you wish they would get it all over with already.
