Fresh in the theaters is ““Knives Out” ,” a thriller with a star-studded cast.Directed by Rian Johnson, “Knives Out” is a modern-day “Clue.” It features a family party for crime novelist Harlan Thrombey’s 85th birthday. It seems like all good and fun till the next morning the housekeeper finds Harlan’s throat slit in his bedroom. As tension heats up in the home, everyone becomes a suspect with a motive. That includes his son, Walt Thrombey, played by Michael Shannon, his daughter Linda Drysdale, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Harlan’s daughter-in-law Joni, played by Toni Collette, and his grandson Ransom Drysdale, played by Chris Evans. While the death is originally written a suicide, a private investigator mysteriously hired, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) suspects foul play.
The movie has done very well in theaters. It has received a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and surpassed their $40 million budget by making over $70 million in the box office. Although critics have raved everywhere about this, I was not that pleased with what I had seen. Daniel Craig is a very talented actor and is known for very serious roles, primarily being James Bond. He is a British actor, which means he talks like he has tea with the queen every day in real life. However, his character, Benoit Blanc, despite sounding French is a deep Southern-raised character. Which means he’s supposed to have a southern accent. This accent was so atrocious it honestly hurt to listen to. I understand that it was overdone to add humor such as Brad Pitt’s accent in “Inglorious Bastards.”
But if I am being honest, it sounded like Michael Scott in that episode of “The Office” when they play that murder mystery board game and they all talk in these god-awful accents. Also, I was not too pleased with the ending. I found it anticlimactic. I will not write any spoilers because if you want to know who did it, you’re just going to have to watch it yourself. But as you watch there are complications with the murder and it was as deceitful as one had hoped. I was not blown away by who did it and why. I mean they each had motive for a reason, but there wasn’t exactly a twist ending that had me in my seat saying “Oh my god.”
The movie, though, made fun of so much going on in our generation that was so entertaining and, unfortunately, accurate. As soon as his nurse pulls into the house the next morning, she is welcomed by Harlan’s granddaughter and Joni’s daughter, Meg Thombrey (Katherine Langford) who is a college student and automatically whips out her Juul in the driveway. The movie highlights everything wrong with our generation, including trust fund baby Ransom and his cousin and Walt’s son ,Jacob (Jaeden Martell) who as Walt says “has become political,” while Joni prefers to call him a “little Nazi” because his character in the movie is just that offensive. They also have Joni depicted as a basic, influencer, white mom whose daughter goes to a liberal arts college and changes her major every few months. The movie paints a lot of humor with this character list. They are bound to have conflict that include throwing little witty remarks at one another when the time is right.
The movie lasts two hours and 15 minutes, but in all honesty I felt as though it could’ve ended quicker. The movie took extra time because you had to watch even the little things for it all to make sense for that ending. I didn’t really wish I spent that time waiting.
The movie is out now in theaters, but I really would just wait for it to come out on demand to rent. It was a good movie but not enough to do the whole movie theater experience. I wouldn’t watch it again.
