“Look around,” says Detective Elliott (LaKeith Stanfield), referring to the curio-studded home of deceased mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). “I mean, the guy practically lives on a ‘Clue’ board.” Anyone who loves “Clue” should immediately watch “Knives Out,” Rian Johnson’s wildly successful 2019 whodunnit. Not because of the shoutout, but because it’s an inventive, thoroughly enjoyable piece of entertainment.
Thrombey is dead, and his eccentric, dysfunctional family is eager to carve up his estate. An anonymous source hires renowned private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, speaking with a “Kentucky fried, Foghorn Leghorn drawl”) to investigate, and he suspects the death was actually murder. Benoit partners with Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), Harlan’s kindhearted nurse and the surprise beneficiary of his will, to solve the mystery and find the “whole at the center of this donut.”
Johnson reinvigorates the old genre of the parlor room mystery early on with a surprise twist: the film reveals, in a flashback, how Thrombey died and who was with him. The audience knows “whodunnit,” and the question then becomes, “But will they get away with it?” This film is the kind of instant crowd-pleaser that grabs peoples’ imaginations and inspires articles about Chris Evans’ sweaters. See it and know why audiences are so excited for 2022’s “Knives Out 2.”