Knives out review

[Westside Steve]

Knives Out
Lionsgate
PG-13        130 min

I recorded what I thought was old folk song call the Long Black Veil assuming it was an Irish traditional, and therefore royalty-free piece. Stand-up guy that I am I always check and to my surprise I found out that it was written decades ago buy a fellow who said that he wanted to write something that sounded like an old traditional song. My point? I would have guessed that KNIVES OUT, a new mystery film, would have been taken from a novel by someone wanting to recreate the genre made famous by the iconic Agatha Christie. As it turns out it’s written produced and directed by Rian Johnson as an homage to that style. I was about to try to find the series of novels when I found this out.  The venerable Ms. Christy follows a certain pattern with her novels, most often a crime has been committed among a group of relatives or friends and one of her famous detectives be it Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple are called upon to get to the bottom of it. In this case the sleuth is Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) who has been hired anonymously to find out what really happened to a famous and very wealthy mystery novelist Harlen Thromby. (Christopher Plummer). Over the years the old fellow has steadfastly refused to allow his work to be made into film productions and this loss of revenue sorely vexes his immediate family.  The old man appears to have taking his own life in his top floor study but remember that this is a mystery so the key word here is appears.  The unsavory group of dependents gather around the old authors mansion for the reading of the will like ghouls around an open grave. The police and prospective beneficiaries are ready to write off the death as a suicide until the unexpected guest Mr. Blanc begins to suspect foul play. I fear that any further details of the plot would spoil the mystery for any of you who would like to go see this one and I recommend that you do.  
Truth be told it’s not obvious at all how the murder took place or why so there is suspicion cast on every member of the household. The puzzle becomes more complicated as each suspect casts doubt on every other suspect. I thought I’d figured it out fairly early but as it turns out I’m not nearly as clever as I thought. 
The solid, if not star-studded, cast skillfully navigates the varying styles ne'er do wells who make up the old fellow’s family. It includes a couple surprises namely Don Johnson and Jamie Lee Curtis among its ranks. Speaking of acting since I mentioned Tom Hanks southern accent in another review this month let me point out the Daniel Craig, an Englishmen, adopt a reasonable southern gentleman dialect even if it does slightly resemble Moe Howard’s Colonel Beauregard. I’ll tell you this much, we might think we know what happened, though we probably don’t, and certainly won’t be sure of the why and wherefore which is, of course, spelled out for the climax of the flick. It doesn’t move along as quickly as one might have liked but audiences are sure to enjoy the unfolding of the mystery in the finale. 
B
WSS
 

[The Gipper]

Agree, very reminiscent of an Agatha Christie effort.   Good performances, though I thought less of Craig's southern accent, and I think it lessened as the show went on, thankfully.  I still think it was a bit unclear as to what role the "bad guy".....Chris Evans  better known as Captain America, did.  But agree with the B rating.

[ATOM]

oh i thought it might be a movie about RADIOHEAD