'Knives Out' Review—Hilarious and Unpredictable

I would feel bad for everyone not seeing this movie because Rian Johnson ruined their childhood or something like that, but I don't feel bad because they're the ones missing out on one of the best movies of the year.

Here we go!

Knives Out is a black comedy mystery thriller written and directed by Rian Johnson, the man behind Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Looper, two films which I absolutely adore.

This film has an ensemble cast that includes Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Daniel Craig, and a ton of others. The story revolves around the suicide of a family's patriarch and the detectives who investigate whether it was actually a suicide or if it was really a murder.

I don't want to give you too many details about what happens in this movie, because I don't want you to walk into the film with inaccurate expectations, and personally, I think it's better for you to walk into this movie cold.

Johnson crafted this film perfectly. The film is being marketed as a modern-day "whodunnit," and while that partially describes the film, it is much more of a darkly funny, mystery thriller instead of a more simple, "who was the culprit?" story.

The film's script is great. Johnson creates a lot of setups throughout the film and provides them with good payoffs, and he knows how to reveal his twists slowly and at the right time in the narrative, because a large portion of the first act is told through various flashbacks from varying perspectives.

And this was an effective way of delivering exposition to the audience because it allowed us to watch the same events occur multiple times but with a bit more information each time depending on which character we're watching and what they remember.

While this film carries a great deal of tension in the conflicts shown between characters and the consistently unpredictable narrative, it also has a lot of levity throughout, with a good amount of really funny jokes that are all edited in really clever ways (Charlie's Angels, take notes).

Personally, I was laughing a lot throughout, as every character had their own interesting personality and everyone did a really great job of commanding the screen with a good amount of charisma, with Evans and Craig standing out the most to me.

After watching Chris Evans portray Captain America (the nicest person ever) for nine years, it was really fun to see him portray Ransom, a wisecracking character that doesn't get along with his family, and he does a great job with this role.

Daniel Craig was also really entertaining in this film. He has a very unique accent in this film, and his performance is so hammy that you can tell that he had a ball portraying Detective Benoit Blanc, the detective investigating the death.

There's a scene in this film where Craig has an entire monologue about donuts and it is incredibly hilarious. I loved it so much.

However, the scene-stealer in this film is Ana de Armas, an actress who's been receiving more recognition since her roles in films such as Blade Runner 2049. Her character is much more serious than the rest of the characters, and she does a great job selling her emotional scenes.

Everyone in the ensemble cast delivers a wonderful performance, and I love how they gave many people in the family a motive for killing Harlan Thrombey and we don't really know if any of them did it or if they were pulling any strings from behind the scenes.

The film's pacing also works pretty well, and the tone of the film never feels jarring. It transitions from comedy to drama very smoothly and there's always a sense of mystery throughout, as we don't always know what's going to happen or where the story is headed.

Johnson balances his tone very well and also puts his characters on edge with each other by crafting uncomfortable situations out of the events of the film, and this creates very unique relationships between our characters while also knowing when to be funny as well.

The way this film manages to be very funny and suspenseful all while having a consistently interesting murder mystery type of story is wonderful. Johnson's script allows you to enjoy the film, get wrapped up in the story, and not notice any of the foreshadowing until the end of the film.

And I absolutely loved the way the film ended. I loved where the story went, and it was quite ingenious what Johnson was able to put together with this film.

In terms of my issues with the film, I felt like the movie should have had more scenes in the house because it was a more claustrophobic environment. Furthermore, I feel like the film's ending would have been better had there been more explicit red herrings given to the audience throughout the film.

What more can I really say? This movie was a blast. I had a really good time with it, and I hope you will too. I saw this film at an early access screening, so it's not getting a wide release until Wednesday.

Buy tickets for this film and go support it because whether you love Rian Johnson's work or this immensely talented cast of actors or maybe you just love mystery films, this movie will definitely give you an awesome time with its twists and turns and hilarious comedy.

I'm gonna give 'Knives Out' a 9/10 (A-).

Check this film out, guys. This year has had too many reboots, remakes, and sequels; let's give an original idea our box office money.

Thank you so much for reading!