RageLite review - Knives Out

I’m not going to sugarcoat this, I freaking love The Last Jedi.

After a movie that felt far too safe, it was nice to see a Star Wars film that took creative risks, the visuals are incredible and it had interesting pathos and themes. The problems, though often landing at Rian Johnson’s feet, stem from the higher ups having no idea what they’re doing and not having a creative framework in place for the story. It’s no wonder The Rise of Skywalker back-peddled so hard on it. It’s not faultless, of course, but it actually does have me excited for a film trilogy where Rian Johnson can plan it start to finish.

But of course, I know others don’t see it that way, they see Rian’s attempts to subvert expectations to be frustrating and to an extent I understand that. Still, let’s take him away from an established franchise like Star Wars and see if that method actually works.

Knives Out is a murder mystery story in the same vein as an Agatha Christie story. $40m budget, $311m at the box office, high ratings with both audiences and critics and a Netfix deal for 2 sequels worth more than the box office takings of this movie.

The story begins with the death of Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plumber), which is actually pretty unusual for a murder mystery. Usually we get some kind of establishment as to the most likely motives for murder. We see that slowly play out during interviews, which come after the funeral.

The death was originally ruled a suicide. In fiction, if your death looks to be a suicide, it’s more likely a murder. And making that case more compelling is the fact that Private Detective Benois Blanc played by Daniel Craig doing his best at a southern accent, has been hired anonymously to investigate.

The interviews reveal a few key components to the core mystery. His son-in-law, Richard (Don Johnson) had been cheating on his wife, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Harlan threatened to expose him, his daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) had been caught double-dipping tuition fees for her daughter, Meg (Katherine Langford) from Harlan and he’s cutting her off. Harlan was an acclaimed writer and his son, Walt (Michael Shannon) had been running his publishing house, though Harlan refused to allow his stories to be adapted. Harlan decided to cut him off from it.

Each of these are suspicious but weak motives for murder and Blanc continues his investigation. Next up is Harlan’s nurse, Marta Cabrera (Anna de Armas) and we see in flashback that when giving Harlan his medication, accidentally mixed up the medicine bottles and gave him an overdose of morphine. Too far out for any ambulance to make it in time and the one thing that could help suddenly missing, Harlan slits his own throat and gives Marta instructions to create an alibi for herself.

But Marta suffers from an unfortunate and very plot-convenient condition, she can’t lie without puking. Can Benois Blanc solve the mystery, as the plot-thickens and twists begin to threaten what everyone seems to know?

Knives out is a wonderful subversion of standard mystery tropes, there are many elements here that feel very familiar. A family that all have motives for murder, them each lying to the detectives to cover themselves, each allowing the detectives to form a clearer picture of the house. The subversion is we seem to know what the answer is and all their actions seem to be red herrings and to an extent they are.

The family are extremely dysfunctional, which we get further insight to with the topical discussions they have, in particular with regards to immigration. They’re all racist as f*ck, even those that claim not to be. Relevant because Marta is the daughter of an immigrant who came to the US ‘illegally’. Part of the reason Harlan did what he did is to avoid undue attention on Marta’s family.

So, the plot has some turns as Marta tries to cover up her own involvement and Blanc finds various clues the police have missed and interviews Wanetta (K Callan) who is old enough for most to overlook. Another twist of the story is that it’s Marta, not Benois Blanc who is the main character, which is why I find more sequels with Blanc somewhat perplexing but that’s for another matter.

I can’t really talk about the story without spoiling the twist so spoiler alert. There’s 3 characters I haven’t mentioned yet, aside the police officers who I have nothing to say about. There’s Jacob (Jaeden Martell) who really doesn’t do much in the movie. He’s supposed to be the polar opposite of Meg, who’s doing a ‘SJW degree’ whilst he’s “a literal Nazi.” Problem is his impact on the plot is pretty minimal, he overhears a conversation, or at least 2 lines from a conversation between Harlan and Hugh Ransom Thronby (Chris Evans) alluding to him being cut out of the will.

And in a twist fairly reminiscent of the Poirot Story Dumb Witness, it’s revealed Harlan has rewritten the will and cut his family out entirely, leaving everything to Marta. Rather contradicting the idea of not putting undue attention on her family. And the intent of hiring Benois Blanc was to have Marta jailed for murder and by the slayer rule have her claim to the inheritance revoked.

For someone who have done this, they would’ve had to at least been aware of the idea that Marta was involved in the death and we find out that Ransom had in fact switched the vials of medicine, and removed the life-saving medicine that could have saved him. But since Marta also switched them that ultimately means Harlan took the correct doses and hence his death was purely a suicide. Not murder made to look like suicide, but suicide made to look like murder, that’s another quote from a Poirot story.

Ransom had been manipulating Harlan into her own surrender, but this was further complicated by the last of the 3 characters, Fran, the housekeeper, who had seen Ransom retrieving incriminating evidence on the day of the funeral. She attempts to blackmail him, holding him to ransom (get it, I’m so funny) but knowing now that a blood report would actually prove Marta’s innocence, deflects it onto her and further manipulating her.

I’m cutting a lot to the chase, but the story has some great shots, its political commentary is relatively on point for 2019, despite probably being made several years prior and uses your expectations of how a mystery should play out to its advantage. The characters are largely unlikeable douches, which is nothing new in a murder mystery, but revealing a perception of what happened early, making it seem like a tragic accident that could be framed as murder. It feels like a fitting answer and we’re waiting for everyone to catch up, only to realise the information we have is only part of the puzzle and there are some things that still need piecing together.

The cast all does a phenomenal job, though some could’ve had their roles expanded upon, particularly Jaeden Martell who I know from the IT films is a great young actor. Though I must admit, much like Ransom I could’ve done without the heavy southern accent from Benois Blanc.

Rating 90/100