BEFORE: Well, in the original plan I had worked out, the next film was going to be "Hall Pass", because it connected to another film that I want to see, another one I've been trying to clear off the books for months and is quite un-linkable, much like "Phantom Thread", and the easiest way to get there was through "Hall Pass", I could get there from here in just two steps. But even though I've already got a bunch of Owen Wilson films coming up, so really, what's one more - I wasn't really happy with putting "Hall Pass" here, because it seems like a sort of romance film, albeit a comic one. Maybe that one really belongs in February with the other romances, I thought.
So I did some messing around with the linking to see if I could find a substitute - I couldn't replace it with one film, but I could replace it with two, and at that point my road to Father's Day was still just a bit short, so rather than plan for a day or two off, I took out "Hall Pass", and I'm dialing in two replacement films, and tomorrow's film also ties in with Pride Month, so it seemed like an excellent substitution - I'd heard great things about "Knives Out", so if I was eager to get to it, even better, that confirmed that I'd be willing to make the swap.
The only problem there was, "Knives Out" wasn't available to me yet, not on cable, not on streaming - but I figured there was a good chance it would air on cable before its slot came up - nope. I did have access to an Academy screener, but I still can't get back to that studio because it's still closed due to the pandemic. But then "Knives Out" became available on iTunes and cable On Demand - only at the prices of $5.99 and $6.99, respectively. Oh well, that's more than I like to pay for an On Demand movie, but I didn't see a way to get it at a lower price. I figured that's still cheaper than going to see a movie on the big screen, and since I'm saving money right now with all the theaters closed, I could pay that much to see it, and even eat free popcorn at home, and still sort of justify it.
Thankfully, the price on iTunes JUST came down as of this week, I think, from $5.99 to $2.99. That's MUCH better, now it's a no-brainer. Still not as cheap for me as if it were running on HBO or Showtime, it's still an additional cost but I'll take it. Lakeith Stanfield carries over from "The Girl in the Spider's Web", and in two days time I'll still end up where I would have been if I'd watched "Hall Pass", so my larger plan remains relatively uninterrupted. (UPDATE - this one's coming to AmazonPrime on June 12, so it turns out I was just 10 days too early. The price drop on iTunes was probably a sign it was coming to one of the platforms, I just wasn't sure which one.)
THE PLOT: A detective investigates the death of a patriarch of an eccentric, combative family.
AFTER: It's kind of funny that Daniel Craig was absent from "The Girl in the Spider's Web", when he was prominent in the first "Dragon Tattoo" Hollywood film, but he turned up here on the following day. I think he made the right choice.
That's the best positive I have, the cast - lots of great players, people who have been mainstays of previous Movie Years, like Michael Shannon and Toni Collette - I'm always interested to see how often those cats will appear in any given year. Chris Evans, of course, has been a big player in all the Marvel tentpole films, which I've tended to build my years around so I won't miss them, and while I can't say I program many films with Don Johnson and Jamie Lee Curtis in them, it's great to know these 80's icons are still working.
And I usually LOVE films that take on this genre, spoofing the classic "murder mystery" plots, with all that entails - the enigmatic foreign-sounding detective/criminologist, sorting out a near-impossible murder in a Victorian(-ish) setting, plenty of colorful characters in colorful clothing, each with a unique motive or axe to grind against the deceased, with everyone chewing the scenery as they hold grudges against each other, as the big plot/conspiracy is slowly revealed. It's "Clue", it's "Murder on the Orient Express", it's a convoluted Sherlock Holmes story, all mashed-up together. I don't care if they play all that straight or just do it like a big spoof, like "Murder by Death" did - chances are, it's going to be good and twisty.
But I think the big cast and the stable of stereotypical that makes up this large, thrown-together family is also a drawback here. While nearly every family member gets a few minutes to emote and shine, for some of them, that's all they get. Giving, say, Michael Shannon just a few scenes to be his usually tough, menacing self is kind of limiting, like putting a tiger in a cage or putting weights on an Olympic runner. This is probably why you hired him in the first place, for God's sakes, let the man do his thing! Similarly, Toni Collette gets a few minutes to herself (and if she's not doing a perfect Gwyneth Paltrow impression here, I'll eat my hat) but it's just not enough. I've been given a taste of some great character work here, but I want more - there better be a "Knives Out 2" already in production, because the crazy story of this crazy family needs to be continued.
Naturally, though, I'm trying to avoid any details of the murder in question, or the gradual reveal that takes place over the course of the film. It's very flashbacky, but then it kind of has to be. Like many films these days, there's a splash-page opening with what has determined to be the most interesting moment, the few minutes leading to the discovery of the body, and then everything else gets filled in later as the plot moves simultaneously forward through the investigation and backwards through the flashbacks. Normally I would hate this, but it's fine for a murder investigation I suppose - if I'm being honest, I don't think there was another structure that could have worked here.
Inherently one would also expect a number of red herrings, and that's the structure at work again, when there are at least 11 subjects (I would estimate 5 legit ones, the others would be real long shots, but still, possible with enough added motive) and any story in the murder mystery genre would then begin the process of whittling those 11 down to 1 or 2. I'm not going to fault the ultimate solution here, but still in some ways the process of getting there is so overly convoluted that I'm right on the edge of questioning the whole thing. It's not the feeling of "Oh, the pieces were right there the whole time, we just didn't put them together..." but instead it's more like, "Oh, here are the last few pieces that we're choosing to find at the last minute." Which is a choice, but I'm not sure that it's the best one.
The concept of a character who can't lie without vomiting seems just a bit too convenient - I don't believe this is a genuine medical condition in the real world, so it feels very much like a short-cut for a screenwriter looking for a way to avoid using a lie-detector test, which is admittedly a device that comes with its own set of narrative problems, but the vomit thing seems like a cheat. There are other cheats in play here, like how easily people find things that were supposed to be hidden - so I guess they weren't really hidden very well, then? I think this film could have been a "7", maybe should have been a "7", but I think the closer I take a look at the mechanics behind it all, the more little things I'm going to find that will bug me. I think it's worthy of a re-watch, because I want to catch everything I missed on the first time around, but I'm not sure this will become a long-term favorite for me after that. The sequel, on the other hand, I'm totally down for, now that I know what sort of thing to look for.
Also starring Daniel Craig (last seen in "Defiance"), Chris Evans (last seen in "What's Your Number?"), Ana de Armas (last seen in "Hands of Stone"), Jamie Lee Curtis (last seen in "The Tailor of Panama"), Michael Shannon (last seen in "Elvis vs. Nixon"), Don Johnson (last seen in "Book Club"), Toni Collette (last seen in "Krampus"), Christopher Plummer (last seen in "Lucky Break"), Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell (last seen in "Playing It Cool"), Riki Lindhome (last heard in "The Lego Batman Movie"), Edi Patterson, Frank Oz (last heard in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), K Callan (last seen in "Frankie and Johnny"), Noah Segan (last seen in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"), M. Emmet Walsh (last seen in "Reds"), Marlene Forte, and the voice of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (also last heard in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi").
RATING: 6 out of 10 South American countries
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