Most who-dunn-its run to a formulae, find a body, gather the suspects, throw in some red herrings, line everyone up in the lounge and hey-presto we have our killer. The Knives Out movie does follow this comfortable tradition. However, usually you can easily pick the murder by identifying the highest grossing actor, a task deemed impossible considering the stellar cast.
When wealthy author Harlan Thrombey (Clive Plummer) is found dead in is study initial thoughts turn to suicide. The family, who had gathered in the old homestead castle for a party, consider this a logical explanation especially as it will speed up the reading of the will. Local police also think it’s an open and shut case considering the means of death, a knife to the throat. Enter private eye Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) who’d been anonymously summoned to the proceedings.
One by one he interviews the family members including Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Richard Drysdale (Don Johnson), their son Ransom (Chris Evans), Linda’s brother Walt Thrombey (Michael Shannon) and daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette). Added in their children Jacob (Jaeden Martell), Donna (Riki Lindhome) and Meg (Katherine Langford). Lurking in the background is Greatnana Wanetta (K Callan). If that’s not enough suspects there’s the old mans carer Marta (Ana de Armas) and housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson). Phew!
There’s not much I can say about the plot, without giving things away, other than it’s so much fun you have no idea that the movie is 2 hours, ten minutes long.
It’s always hard to see Craig as anything other than Bond, but he has a hoot as Blanc, with an American drawl;
Curtis suits this genre well as anyone who’s seen her in Scream Queens and countless others knows. Collette is a delight as the hippy daughter-in-law, a character I can’t remember seeing in United Stated of Tara, although she probably was there. Noah Segan injects goods points of humour as Trooper Wagner. Watch out for the donut comment and the “Game Of Thrones “chair. Overall I loved it, so apologies if you see me soon as I’ll be bugging you to see it.
Agatha Christie, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot would be proud.
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