“Knives Out” follows the story of the supposed murder of Harlan Thrombey, played by Christopher Plummer, who is the head of the house in a highly wealthy family in a whodunnit type of format. The film has quite the lengthy cast list, featuring many well-known actors and actresses that younger and older generations will recognize such as Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, and Katherine Langford.
Detective Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, is enlisted anonymously by one of the family members to uncover what exactly happened to Harlan the night after he celebrated his 85th birthday with his rather large and dysfunctional family.
The film begins with the family’s housekeeper Fran, played by Edi Patterson, finding Harlan dead in his private study. At first, it appears to be a suicide, but Detective Blanc is convinced otherwise. He interrogates each and every one of the family members and goes great lengths in an attempt to prove that Harlan’s death was indeed not a suicide, but a murder.
Detective Blanc decides to get a little aid in solving the case from Harlan’s nurse, Marta, played by Ana de Armas. He does this knowing that he will always get the full truth from her because lying makes her vomit — it’s an easy way out to solve the case. This aspect did make for some pretty interesting scenes in the film.
One thing I personally did not like about this film was how slow-going the plot was. Don’t get me wrong, because I really enjoyed this film, I just wished the pace could have been picked up a bit. I thought the plot played out really well in that it took a lot of twists and turns. One minute I thought I had it all figured out, and the next, new evidence was revealed and I was left completely stumped.
Another aspect of the film I really enjoyed was Chris Evans’ character, Ransom. I have a little pet peeve about actors and actresses that seem like they play the same character in every film and it was nice to see a dynamic change from how he acts as Captain America to how he acts as Ransom. On top of that, he wears some pretty nice sweaters throughout the film, and what’s better than Chris Evans in a sweater?
Even in some of the slower parts of the film, “Knives Out” did a fairly good job of keeping me at the edge of my seat the whole film, trying to figure out the culprit and wanting to know what evidence would be revealed next. I highly recommend this film, especially to those who love a good mystery and maybe even to those who enjoy playing Clue. With a 97 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I don’t see a lot of reasons to not watch it — especially if it means getting to see Chris Evans in a sweater.
