Movie review: Knives Out (2019)

KNIVES OUT 

The family of Harlan Thrombey.

Do you love mystery films? If you love it, let me introduce it to you. Knives Out were directed and co-produced by Rian Johnson. It was released by Lionsgate Films on 27 November 2019.  Knives out were nominated as one of the top ten American mystery films of 2019 by the National Board Review and the American Film Institute. Besides that, Knives Out made $165.4 million in revenue in the United States and Canada, $146 million in other countries, and $311.4 million globally. This film received three nominations at the 77th Golden Globe Awards including Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, and also received Best Original Screenplay nominations at the 73rd British Academy Film Awards and 92nd Academy Awards. The storyline has its own unique style of an old-fashioned murder mystery or people call it “whodunit”. Daniel Craig played a big role as Benoit Blanc, a private detective who was hired anonymously to solve the sudden death of Harlan Thrombey (a wealthy mystery novelist) played by Christopher Plummer. It looks like suicide but there are some questions unanswered.

Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas (Marta Cabrera, Harlan’s nurse) made this film become more interesting for me. They decided to work on the investigation together. Marta Cabrera can’t lie without vomiting and that answers the detective's question. Hugh Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans) is a black sheep in the family. He helps Marta to escape from thrombey’s family when Harlan’s will was read. However, there’s a great plot twist in their story which is kind of confusing but makes sense to the film. The twist of it blows my mind! Detective Blanc takes piece by piece to complete the puzzle. I like how this film has a great aesthetic, full of melancholy color, and is filmed in gorgeous settings (the house's interiors are especially atmospheric and were expertly edited). Knives Out is an excellent film that truly reflects the traditional elements of a murder mystery.

In other words, Knives Out was a skillfully written movie as its throwback to 1970s murder mysteries. Even when something appeared to clear too soon, the plot never felt boring to me. Despite that Johnson was so influenced by Agatha Christie’s writing and this film is a ridiculously fun performance to watch. I love the quotes that Daniel Craig once said in the movie “Mystery is like a donut that is round and has a hole but inside the hole got another small donut with a hole”. I admire how Rian Johnson boosts up the mystery to make the audience question, interested, and eager to know what happens next. The moral of this story, a good-hearted person (Marta Cabrera) will get rewards whereas a greedy person (the family and their children) will not get anything from Harlan’s wealth. As has been said, I would highly recommend this to people who watch mystery films.