This movie has been promoted for months, with trailers starting in July. This type of promotion can go either way; can it be as good as the trailers? Or are the trailers the best parts of a mediocre movie?
I won’t keep you hanging; this is a fabulous “who done it” with plot twists that will keep you guessing till the end.
Our movie centers around accomplished crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (played wonderfully by Christopher Plummer). Harlan’s eighty fifth birthday is being celebrated by is family and staff in the family’s ancestral home (so titled by grandson Ranson Robinson). Harlan has health issues (what eighty five year old doesn’t?) and is being cared for by young immigrant nurse, Marta. After the party, Marta escorts Harlan to his study where she administers his nightly medication and then leaves for the evening. The next morning, while bringing Harlan’s breakfast tray, Fran the housekeeper finds Harlan dead, bled to death by a self- inflicted knife wound to his neck.
What the family doesn’t know the audience does. We have seen what transpired between Marta taking Harlan to his room and Fran’s discovery of Harlan’s body in the morning. No worries, I’m no spoiler and I’m not going to reveal it here. I will tell you that being the crime novelist Harlan was, the complexity of the actions of Marta and Harlan is right out of one of his books.
More plot twisting here with, what the family knows, and what the audience doesn’t is all the family drama that happened that night prior to Harlan retiring for the evening.
Slowly, we learn that Harlan was cleaning house when it comes to his family members taking advantage of his fortune, and that cleaning began that evening. Coincidence that the money is cut off and the next morning Harlan is dead? A week after Harlan’s death, which was determined as suicide, “gentlemen sleuth” Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig) arrives at the Thrombey house. He has been hired anonymously (envelope with a letter and a lot of cash) to look into the death of Harlan. Intrigued Blanc, joins with local detectives to determine if the death was indeed suicide. Soon, he and the detectives learn of Harlan’s intended “house cleaning” of the money sponging family members, and of one family member’s
extra matrimonial affairs.
I want to write more, but I really don’t want to give anything away, because there is a lot going on in this movie.
And Daniel Craig, aka James Bond, as southerner Benoit Blanc!!!! Can you say MARVELOUS!! Please, please Daniel help poor Sienna Miller with her accents (see my review for 21 Bridges if you don’t understand this). He is the perfect southern gentleman, and you can absolutely picture him in one of Thrombey’s crime novels. In fact I think they should start a whole series of movies with Benoit Blanc as a modern day detective Hercule Poirot. (google Poirot if you are confused)
Additional cast members are Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collette and Michael Shannon. And newcomer, Ana de Armas is fabulous as nurse Marta.
Loved the timeliness of the subplot of Marta’s illegal alien mother, and how the relatives attempt to exploit her status.
This is a relatively short review, because there are so many twists to the plot. I don’t want to give anything away and spoil the movie for you.
Knives Out, LOVED IT!!! Obviously it is rated an A and you should run and see this at the theatre, its okay to pay full price for this movie. At a little over two hours, this is a fast paced movie that never has you looking at your cell for the time.
There are no extra scenes during the end credits; this is not that type of movie. Am I getting to easy to please? Seems like there have been several A and A minus movies in the past few months. It took months before giving the first A…do you remember what that movie was? Hint, It was in August 2018. Only a few more weeks till 2020, will we see another A?
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