Thought I would try watching something good on a streaming service for a change. And this is pretty good. The family of the deceased are all a bunch of total grasping scumbags. Not just how readily they throw each other under the bus, and in such a way I'm not sure they even know they're doing. It's funny at times, watching them snipe and bicker, curry for favor, but unsettling, too. It probably depends on how much you enjoy watching family drama play out before you. But also how quickly they turn on Marta (Ana de Armas). That they can pretend to be compassionate and that she's part of the family when they have the upper hand, but once that's lost, well, the knives do come out.
Even Meg, who seems like the most decent member of the family and probably the closest to a real friend to Marta, other than the deceased, Harlan Thrombey, can't keep from telling Marta she ought to give the inheritance back to them. At the end of the day, she wants that money, too.
Speaking for myself, I'd give them the publishing company in an instant, because who wants the hassle of running that? Really, the whole issue of the inheritance was such a mess, I began to suspect Harlan had arranged his own death as part of some elaborate scheme I couldn't see, and Marta was just his patsy. Because it sure seemed like his act of kindness towards someone who cared for him, was only making her life hell.
Which, of course, made me suspect Marta. She seems so kind, so genuine, so motivated by fear of her mother being deported, the whole thing felt ripe for the twist that she's actually a manipulative schemer. Even the thing about her throwing up if she lies, I half-expected to learn was a false tic she concocted as part of her long-range plan to get that fortune. You can't tell me you haven't seen more bizarre last-second reveals in mysteries. Either way, it's a good performance by Armas. She's stressed and panicked, doing everything she can to try and not go to prison for an accident and hating herself.
Chris Evans seems to be having fun playing a shit-stirring prick, while he still makes Ransom capable of turning on the charm when necessary. I mean, we want to believe Captain America isn't that big a jerk. Jamie Lee Curtis' character kind of grated against something in me. She's meant to, so that's good I guess, but she reminded me a little too much of certain relatives of mine. Daniel Craig is, I assume, having fun with his accent. He mostly avoids being too folksy with the character, minus the whole spiel about the doughnut and the doughnut holes. I was disappointed he didn't grab at his suspenders more when he took off his coat during the big explanation scene at the end.
The one thing that paid off the most for me at the very end was Noah Segen's Trooper Wagner character. He plays this kind of goofy, gushing mystery fan the entire film, and it's annoying and a little embarrassing. Like, what do we need this character for? When things move into the climax, his role as audience stand-in is actually entertaining. How he gets so giddy when Benoit Blanc takes off his jacket and begins to describe the scene of events the night of the murder, the "Oh, I know what this, yay!" Then his reaction to Marta's last bit of projectile vomiting (and LaKeith Stanfield's reaction to that reaction) cracked me up.
I mean, I knew Marta was going to need to puke, the moment she got that phone call you know what she's going to hear. I wasn't sure what direction the movie was going to go with it. Thought they might go with her managing to overcome it entirely, or long enough to get the murderer out of the room. Instead they went for hilarious comeuppance. Which is kind of like revenge, so you know I'm in favor of that.
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There's this TV programme here called Midsomer Murders, which has run for decades and every episode is a murder mystery. It's become a joke, that this tiny rural environment is packed with so many killers (see also Murder, She Wrote), but it's one of those things that every British actor turns up in either at the beginning or end of their career.
It's sort of a descendant of things like Inspector Morse and the Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes adaptations, a throwback to a gentler sort of murder show, where it's more about the mystery rather than a gritty procedural thing.
Anyway, Knives Out struck me as an expensive version of that, with the sort of cast you would never get on ITV. As such, I wasn't hugely impressed with it. It was fine, but it's the sort of thing Midsomer Murders does every week, only Captain America is in it.
I was also a bit surprised by Craig's accent. It was so over the top that I was sure it was an act (in the film) and it was going to be revealed at some point. It's an odd casting choice.
I know Midsomer Murders, I think my dad has a lot of it on DVD (along with a lot of Morse, and David Suchet's Poirot, and like 19 other British period detective series).
I can see the comparison, although from what I remember of Midsomer Murders, the characters were a lot more understated or reserved. Which probably makes more sense, but I really enjoyed most of the characters in Knives Out just letting the ugliness show in really petty, stupid ways.
As for Craig, he used a different Southern accent in that Logan Lucky movie, so maybe that's just a thing he likes doing. How he gets his kicks or something. Or it's an Americanized version of Suchet with Poirot's extremely refined and idiosyncratic form of speaking.
Oh yes, the KO characters are broader, more theatre-ey, than your average UK TV cast.
It hadn't occurred to me that Craig was doing the US equivalent of Poirot, but that's probably what they were going for. The eccentric outsider. Maybe using his English accent wouldn't have been odd enough if that's what they were intending. Good spot!
I really enjoyed Knives Out - normally not a genre I go for (which is why I've never seen any of the Midsomer Murders or its ilk) but this looked fun just from the cast.
The thing I liked most was that mid-way pivot where it became less of a who-dunnit and more of a why-it-was-dun which I wasn't expecting.
Kelvin: "Eccentric outsider" is a good way to describe it, because I feel like maybe there's a little of Peter Falk's Columbo in Craig's character. The sort of assuming guy who lets the suspect trip themselves up. But that may just be a common trait among "great detective" characters. Let the bad guy dig their own grave.
Gary: I hadn't thought about that shift, but it's a good point. Although I think I was more interested in how it was done, if it ended up Marta really was innocent.
I think Blanc is probably a bit more like Poirot, because even though he's a bit eccentric, everyone seems to know that he's a great detective.
(This is one of the things I liked about the film; the implication that Blanc has had numerous, famous, adventures before this film. No need for an origin story, let's get straight to it. Although I wouldn't be surprised if we get Benoit Begins in ten years, with Asa Butterfield playing Young Blanc. Anyway.)
Columbo, by contrast, seems to be well known only to an extent. The LAPD know and like him, and he's obviously got a bit of pull to be able to be as eccentric as he is without being on disciplinary procedures all the time, but the general public -- ie, the criminals -- seem to have no idea who he is, and so constantly underestimate him.
I'm sure there's at least one episode in which Guest Star of the Week -- probably Shatner -- calls him "the famous Detective Columbo" but for the most part he's not a celebrity like Holmes, Poirot, and Blanc are.
Who knew I had so many opinions about fictional detectives? Not me!
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