"Knives Out": Return of the Country House Murder Mystery

Last week my wife and I got a rare night out without our son, and so we took ourselves out to see Knives Out, Rian Johnson's new twist on an old form: the "Country House Murder Mystery."

Man, this is SOME cast

Johnson, perhaps best known as The Man Who Killed Off Luke Skywalker, has long been a favorite film-maker of mine. In fact, in advance of the release of Knives Out, I recently went back and reviewed his first film, a wicked little indie-noir known as Brick, for Noir City Magazine's recurring column, "My Favorite Neo-Noir."

(Spoiler alert: I think Brick is brilliant. Not to be missed!)

Curtis, Plummer, Johnson & Shannon

I wasn't sure what to expect from Johnson with this outing. Brick was definitely "indie," mostly financed by Johnson's extended family (Construction business), with a terrific a cast of (mostly) unknowns backing up lead actor Joseph Gordon Levitt. Knives Out has garnered considerable advance attention on the strength and depth of it cast alone.

And that cast, under Johnson's direction of a screenplay he also wrote, flat-out delivers.

Michael Shannon & Chris Evans

Christopher Plummer is brilliant as the successful mystery author/family patriarch/requisite dead body/ guy everyone secretly hated. Jamie Lee Curtis shines as his driven, perceptive, angry daughter. Don Johnson is terrific as her "complicated" husband. Chris Evans  as their asshat son makes you want to by turns laugh out loud and slap him. Michael Shannon is nuanced and riveting as Plummer's nebishy-and-none-too-successful only surviving son. Toni Collette nails the portrayal of the flakey New Age widow of Plummer's long-dead other son. Ana De Armas steal scene after scene with a pitch-perfect portrayal of Plummer's pathologically honest nurse/unofficial amanuensis/sole confidante.

And I won't even get into their kids.

Then there are the cops! LaKeith Stanfield is great as the local police detective with the thankless task of running the investigation of the recently departed novelist's suspicious death. Frequent Johnson collaborator Noah Segan hilariously portraying a Massachusetts state trooper/crime fiction fanboy, and Daniel Craig perfectly plays the reknowned private detective improbably consulting with the local cops on this baffling scenario.

Craig busy detecting and Stanfield busy being frustrated

Was the patriarch murdered? If so who did it? Like the movie posters say about the film, "Hell, any of them could have done it."

Ana De Armas and The House

What's more, a lot of Johnson's signature moves were on full display in this film. He loves chase scenes (Check.). Sunset shots/rumination pieces. (Check.). Witty dialogue (Check.). Frequently flashbacks, often to the same scene from different character perspectives (Check multiples times over). Cinematography which owes a lot to classic film noir (dark rooms in a big old mansion, duh, Check!). At least one slow-motion shot (Check.). And a TON of plot twists and turns (Check, check, check!).

I was chewing over all of the above as my wife and I left the theater after the film. Out of the blue, she turned to me and, as usual, neatly summed up the experience in a way that had not occurred to me.

"Johnson," she said, "Made a cozy."

And she was right!

And he even nailed the accent!

Knives Out takes the time-honored (some would say, "tired.") "unexpected death of a person with lots of enemies in a country house" trope and puts it on its head. And it works spectacularly. Like Brick before it, Knives Out manages to serve as both mash-up and tribute, giving viewers a new angle, a different take on what could rightly be considered a shop-worn plot device.

I mean, hey, it's been done before. And it's been sent-up before, too. This film owes equal debts to the likes of Murder, She Wrote, and such parodies of the form as Clue.

That said, Johnson and his cast still manage to breathe new life into both the form and the parodies of it. And best of all, they bring the whole thing off as a clear love letter to the form they're riffing on.

There's so much to like here.

And on that note, I don't want to give too much away, so I'll wrap this entry up here. What else can I say? Knives Out is well worth a look!

Did you see it? If so, what did you think? Please give a response in the Comments section!

See you in two weeks with the de rigueur "End of Year" post. Happy Holidays!