Knives Out - Johnson Redeems Himself
Knives Out
By: Noah Newcomb
Before I watched No Country for Old Men this was my fourth favorite movie. I only went to see this movie because I was a fan of Chris Evan and Daniel Craig. Then I saw who the director was: Rian Johnson. I'm just going to put it out there, I'm not a fan of The Last Jedi. I think that people hate on it too much but I'm still not a fan. So when I heard Rian Johnson was directing I got a little nervous. However, the moment I heard Nathan Johnson's incredible score I was sucked into the movie. Rian Johnson does a great job of doing a riff on the whodunit genre of films. I haven't seen many whodunit films, I've only seen this one and Clue, another great movie. Johnson does a great job of the tone and feel of this environment. Rian Johnson does a great job of making all the characters in the story. You can learn a lot about each of these characters just buy what they're wearing. If you look at the poster down below, all the heavily featured characters are on there. You learn a lot about them just based on what they're wearing and their composer. Something interesting about Knives Out that enthralled me and made me recognize that this is truly one of a kind film. At the start of the film its a whodunit, then when we reach the thirty-minute mark it switches genre into something that I'm not going to get to until we breach the spoiler wall but before we do I'd like to talk about the characters who are my favorite thing about the movie! Every character in this movie I enjoy seeing on screen. Johnson does a good job of making this feel like a very real family with the relationships between each of them, their jobs, and relationships to Harlan which plays a crucial role in the story. This is one of the greatest casts assembled since 2012's The Avengers. I think this movie marked a crucial role in my love of movies and even art. I was 12 at the time and was really caught up in the cinematic universes and the Disney Star Wars films. Shortly after this, I saw slightly "smaller" movies if you see what mean. I wasn't looking at $1,000,000,000 grossing movies, not that any of those movies are bad, my interests just changed. I saw films like A Quiet Place, Ford v Ferrari, Inception, The Sandlot, The Two Popes, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly to just name a few. So I owe a lot to this movie. Anyway back to the characters. Every actor in this movie does a great job. I've become more interested in some of these actors thanks to Knives Out. Don Johnson, Jami Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon who I had seen before in Man of Steel but I thought he got to shine here, Katherine Langford did a good job, and the surprise hit of the movie, Anna de Armas. Usually, in most films, a character like Benoit Blanc would be the character I want to follow the most and I'll get to him later. But Anna de Armas does a fantastic job in this movie. When my dad and I were walking out from seeing this we were talking about how well Anna de Armas did in this movie. Being the main protagonist of the movie and having been in a lot, had to be a lot of pressure, yet Anna does a fantastic job, but let's talk about Chris Evans's character Ransom. This is the only performance of Evans's that I've seen that wasn't Captain America. I think he does a good job of trying to escape the long shadow of Captain America but he'll always go down as the man who played as Captain America in the MCU by the majority of people. He does a good job of playing a slimy character who you want to trust (because he's Chris Evans) but just doesn't seem to be able to. I have to say I thought Daniel Craig got the short shrift at the Oscars. Blanc is a lot of fun Knives Out and is the highlight of the film for me. His southern accent and donut analogy are both two of my favorite things about the film. Even after seeing this movie more than a half a dozen times at this point, Blanc never gets old. I would recommend this movie to someone just to see Craig's performance. I'm not going to say he had the best performance of the year but I still think he should've at least been up for an Oscar.
SPOILERS!!!
Being a Whodunit film there are obviously spoilers to talk about. So let's just get it out of the way: the murder in Chris Evans. Now I mentioned earlier that Knives Out switched genres. In the beginning this is a classic whodunit. We see Blanc trying to solve the mystery, as he's interviewing different relatives of Harlan's. Then once we reach Anna de Armas at the thirty-minute mark, we figure out that Anna is responsible for Harlan's death (or so we think at the time). Now the movie has turned into howisthepersonwhodunitgoingtogitawaywithit. Like I said earlier Anna does a great job of being a sympathetic character. We want her to get out of this. Johnson does another thing that aids the movie greatly. As soon as Chris Evans enters the picture I'm instantly suspicious. He's a slimy character and no one trusts him, but as the movie goes we begin to think he might actually be good. Then Johnson reverts expectations again and it's revealed Evans's is actually the murderer. Once again, Johnson subverted expectations. Johnson also gives each character a motive for killing Harlan so we're not just thinking about Chris Evans.
Final Thoughts
It was a tough decision putting No Country for Old Men above Knives Out. I was a little disappointed when the Oscar Nominations list was out. I really thought this was going to get more Oscar buzz. I guess I just have to settle for the Best Original Screenplay Nomination. Nathan Johnson's score should've been up for Best Score as well. Anyway, I appreciate Knives Out a ton and I hope more people check it out. The fact that there might be more movies with Benoit Blanc is really exciting for me. This is a very strong recommendation. If you didn't like The Last Jed don't hold that against Johnson. I didn't like it either, and this is one of my favorite films of all time. Strongest of Recommends.
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