'Knives Out' Is an Outstanding Modern Whodunit Because It Is Both Familiar and Unconventional

I have soft spot in my heart for mystery.  It was probably the earliest genre I got to be fond of (at least, at the time when I first understood the concept of genres).  So, it’s really unfortunate that whodunits are rare in cinema nowadays.  That’s why a movie like Knives Out is immediately a must-watch for me.

What I first immediately loved about Knives Out was the fact that it isn’t based on a famous book like Murder on the Orient Express.  It has an original screenplay.  Thus, the potential of surprise is available for every moviegoer going in.

Second thing I immediately loved was the cast.  I don’t know what it is about whodunits and its cast, but I feel that a whodunit film requires an all-star ensemble in order to be a legit one.  Maybe so that the identity of the culprit isn’t easily guessable?  Anyway, this movie being studded with several recognizable names and faces was really an instant source of excitement for me.

Knives Out follows famous gentleman detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as he drops by the Thrombey estate to investigate the death of the family patriarch (Christopher Plummer), who supposedly committed suicide shortly after his 85^th birthday party.  However, something has given Blanc the impression that it could have possibly been a murder.  With suspects ranging from the personal nurse (Ana de Armas) to anyone in the Thrombey clan (Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Chris Evans, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, Riki Lindhome, and K Callan), he must examine them closely and sift through their lies, misdirection, and half-truths in order to get to the bottom of it.

Even though the movie is set in modern times, it has an appealingly old-school, Agatha Christie vibes to it.  It has familiar whodunit elements and style.  The mystery-solving process is also somewhat Hercule Poirot-ian at times.  That being said – I consider the following information a major SPOILER, so be warned – it’s not a conventional whodunit at all.  In fact, it ceases being a whodunit halfway through.  At midpoint, the truth about what really happened to the focal victim is already revealed.  Afterward, the film still has layers of mystery to uncover, but it also becomes a drama thriller about class warfare.

The producer, writer, and director of this movie is Rian Johnson, who is considered by many as the man who ruined Star Wars.  Sometimes, it seems like his brand of storytelling is a bit pretentious, and that   his thing is to be subversive just for the sake of being subversive.  I felt that with The Last Jedi, and I felt that with Knives Out. Fortunately, regardless of whatever flaws are inherent to it, his style worked much better for the latter.

In the end, I enjoyed Knives Out.  It’s possible that I only liked it this much because whodunit films like it are rare these days.  Regardless, the fact remains that I did enjoy it.  It’s not perfect, but it’s clever, funny, stimulating, and insightful enough to be a standout of 2019 cinema.

And, yeah, I’m totally down for a Benoit Blanc film series.