My Review of "Knives Out"

Knives Out came out last year with some resounding success. It came out of nowhere and was given a lot of push by the media. I for some reason never got the chance to watch the movie until this week. It's too bad because this would have been a really fun movie to have watched with a group of people in the theatres.

The movie starts off with the murder of the patriarch of a pretty rich family. This death is ruled off as a suicide as it looked like he had committed suicide. Of course this movie wouldn't be a movie it was that simple. He has a son, a daughter and a caretaker by the name of Marta. Each one of these characters have very weird eccentricities that are quite entertaining.

Marta is a sweet innocent caretaker that needs to vomit whenever she lies. The whole movie surrounds her. At all times you wonder if the vomiting thing a trick or does she actually get sick whenever she lies. I suspected her throughout the movie because her character is too good to be true.

Then we have the first son by the name of Walt. He's trying to take over the father's empire but his father doesn't want him to and basically fired him the night before his death. Walt is extremely angry about this and his family doesn't have it any better. Walt's daughter Meg needs her grandfather to help fund her education. Walt's wife has been recently cut off from her allowance from the patriarch because it was discovered that she was taking money money out of her daughter's education fund. It seems as though there are motives for Walt and his wife to commit the murder.

There's also Linda the daughter. She's a self made millionaire as well. She doesn't really have motive to kill her father but her husband does. The patriarch had discovered that Linda's husband was having an affair and he had filed a prenuptial with Linda. The patriarch basically threatened to tell Linda of the affair if he didn't confess to his infidelities. Linda's son isn't off the hook either. He had some mysterious argument with the patriarch the night before the death and stormed off.

One of the biggest mysteries is the inclusion of Benoit, a renown detective. He's been mysteriously hired for the job of investigating the murder when it was simply ruled as a suicide. It isn't even known himself why he was hired on to the case and he's trying to figure this out while he solves the case.

This whole movie is a really fun cat and mouse chase between Benoit and the rest of the family. He takes a liking to Marta and has her follow along with his investigations because she has that condition where she can't lie. Seeing as the whole movie is in Marta's perspective it's a really interesting take on the movie. Marta is probably the most sane person in the movie despite her weird ailment.

As the movie progresses we learn that Marta has a bigger part in the suicide of the patriarch than we had anticipated. When she tries to cover up her tracks it proves pretty difficult because of her strange disease. There are a few weird holes in how they scripted her ailment and how it's portrayed in the movie but to keep the movie going you just have to go with it. Or at least it makes you suspect that maybe she's lying about the whole thing which increases the mystery of the movie.

With all of the eccentricities of each of the characters this movie is a riot. The comedy comes with the interactions of with each other and their far extreme reactions to each of the situations they're placed in. It's not the type of humor for everyone because it is darker humor than people are used to but it is funny nevertheless.

Overall, I would highly recommend this movie because it is a wild ride that you don't really want to get off of. It will take you to weird places that you didn't expect them to take you. I'm just glad that this movie made all the right decisions in the directions it went. I have to give this movie a 8.5 out of 10. I would probably re-watch this movie if I knew someone wanted to watch it again with me.