Knives Out
Maybe I was expecting too much from Rian Johnson’s mystery thriller Knives Out. I suspected it was a whodunnit, rather than the whydunnit it actually is. Look. I love that there is an original Agatha Christie-type film out in theatres right now. That brings me absolute delight. Like authentic screwball comedies and golden age musicals, some styles of film just cease to exist anymore. Then, we get a The Grand Budapest Hotel or a La La Land, which lends their hands at trying to stir the pot within the old, unused cauldrons, to create a new concoction for these genres. Knives Out is that kind of film. So, yes. I am glad it exists. The majority of the film is smashing Clue guesswork.
However… this review is as short as it is for good reason. I was expecting to really try to unravel this whole story. The huge cast, the promising premise, and the crew behind this film, all set me up in a way that I knew this film would at least be good at the very least. Good, it is. Fantastic? I honestly can’t say that it is. A proper whodunnit is supposed to have you scrambling to figure out what is going on. You have a whole list of people that have motives on display, all connected to the Thrombey family in some way. The suicide of Harlan Thrombey is being investigated for foul play. At the start of this film, it was hard to tell who truly was at fault here. By the second act, when this murder mystery begins to be limited to only a few key pieces (specifically an outlier in the first act, and the main protagonist of the film), then it becomes its own film. It’s no longer a whodunnit. Any twists saved for the end are either just explanations of what we already put together, or not that surprising if you were paying close enough attention. Maybe you won’t guess literally what happened, but you can most likely predict just enough of who was involved and why.
The Thrombey family watching their inspected house from afar.
Look. I watch a lot of films. A mystery like this should not have been as predictable as it is. When Detective Benoit Blanc starts flailing around claiming there is something much bigger to this story, I was expecting a major curveball, not the filling-in of the blanks that anyone could have figured out. In fact, at that point, the film tells you the only couple of people to even suspect. I’d have no problem if Knives Out went off the rails and stepped out of its murder mystery conventions to become something completely different. It didn’t do that. It hopped back in to the vehicle set on course for its one destination, and so it gets resolved as a whodunnit. Again, any extreme threat can be predicted a mile away if you’ve been paying even moderate attention. Only one part of the film caught me by surprise (I won’t say what), but it was hardly the biggest surprise ever. It wasn’t even the biggest twist of the year.
Otherwise, Knives Out is a lot of fun, and a great tribute to the genre, but I sadly didn’t see it boosting the murder mystery canon in any significant way (outside of breathing some life into it). For people new to the genre, I can see why Knives Out would be a smashing good time. For people heavily obsessed with the genre, it may just be a noble attempt. It’s like going up to Penn and Teller with yet another iteration of Lance Burton’s often-copied doves trick. The effort will be applauded, but it’s hardly refreshing.
I’ve bashed about the film enough. Having said all of that griping, Knives Out, again, is a lot of fun. Johnson’s screenplay is magnetic when it isn’t being too easy to crack. The star studded cast bring their A-game (even though I also feel that many members don’t get enough screen time, especially since the film cuts down on its players for a good duration of the film). The essence of a proper murder mystery is alive. It’s a good time, and a nice enough film to check out. Knives Out just could have been oh-so much more scandalous and cunning, though. We want to play a guessing game. Instead, we get an ambiguity wondering “where do we go from here?” and “what is the right thing to do?”. Eh.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.