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A Rian Johnson direction, Knives Out, was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2019. Knives Out is a modern whodunnit, in which the patriarch Harlan Thrombey is murdered in his own family gathering and a master detective is called to look into the matter. Harlan invites the family for the celebration of his 85th birthday, but he is found dead in his room the next morning. Then Detective Benoit Blanc investigates the case and questions the Thrombey family.
The suspense of the murder doesn’t stick around for long as the murderer and the motive is revealed the very early scenes of Knives Out. But the movie is full of twists and surprises. So later the movie reveals that the murder was planned by someone else, who was furious at Harlan as he gave away all his will to his nurse Martha.
The cast of Knives Out is quite remarkable with actors like Chris Evans, Michael Shannon, Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Jaeden Martell, Ana de Armas, Don Johnson, Christopher Plummer, Lakeith Stanfield, and Katherine Langford. Even the storyline is pretty strong with all the mystery and twists. Rian Johnson tried to portray Benoit Blanc just like Sherlock Holmes but left some little loopholes in the character. Even though people would not have noticed these loopholes while leaving the theatres, but they were present in the film. So here are some points that did not make any sense in the Knives Out.
The label of the recording
Even though Elliott was supposed to be recording multiple Thrombeys in the family, he still labeled the voice recording of Linda as just ‘Thrombey.’ How was he supposed to pick the right one later without listening to it?
No open windows
When detectives were walking out of the house, Richard throws a baseball out of the window of the room and the ball goes in the yard outside. When seen carefully, no windows of the room are seen to be open. Was there a secret window he used to throw the ball? because no glass was broken by it.
Killed himself without symptoms
It was later revealed in Knives Out that Harlan did not overdose, and he had plenty of time until Martha left the house. He didn’t show symptoms by that time, so shouldn’t he just have realized that he did not overdose and just not killed himself?
Distance and time doesn’t matter
When Harlan slits his throat, Martha was standing on the door, which was on the opposite side of the room. Despite so much distance, how did Martha end up with a bloodstain on her shoe? Also, regardless of how old the blood spot was, it still looked fresh and red.
The relevance of the blood
Blanc telling Marta that he knew she was involved from the moment he saw the blood on her shoe, just ruins the image of Blanc as a super detective. Because that blood could have literally been from anywhere. How did he know that the blood was related to Harlan’s death?
Ransom’s conversation was hidden until the end
When Blanc was interviewing all the family members, a flashback of their last conversations with Harlan is shown. And those flashback reveals each of their potential motives. But when it comes to Ransom, he is only shown furiously leaving Harlan’s office and nothing else.
Only by the end of the movie, it is shown that Harlan not only mentioned that he cut Ransom out of his will, but also that he will be giving everything to Marta. This meant that only Ransom knew about Marta getting everything from Harlan. If this would have shown in the starting, the motive of killing Harlan and framing Marta for it would have been made very clear. Also, Ransom was seen to be laughing when the will was read. Which was because he already knew about it.
Greatnana mistakes Marta for Ransom
When Marta goes to Greatnana, she mistakes her for Ransom. But if she has spent so much time with him, shouldn’t she be knowing him well and not mistaking someone else for him? Also, if she had mistaken Marta for Ransom, she could have mistaken anybody for Ransom and that doesn’t prove that Ransom was ACTUALLY there.
Recording Ransom’s Confession
It was shown that Blanc was recording Ransom’s whole confession. But when the mobile is displayed on the screen, the recording was just 45 seconds done, so did he actually record the complete confession or not?
Knives Out Review Common Sense Media
Harlan’s dogs barking at Ransom
Harlan’s dogs did not bark at Marta as she was shown to be a person of good character, but they did bark at Ransom. When asked first, Linda told that she woke up thrice because of the noises. The first one was of when Marta tripped in Harlan’s room when she was trying to get him help. The second one was when Marta came down in Harlan’s clothes for the midnight snack. And the third one was dogs barking, which definitely happened after Marta left the house. But the director of Knives Out did not put much focus on this point, which proved to be crucial in the end. And Blanc being such a good detective, shouldn’t he have focused on this point? If he would have had focused on it, the mystery could have been solved way earlier in the movie. Also, dogs just judge people by their behavior with them, not with their character.
Conclusion
Knives Out is a great piece of work. Each one of the actors played their parts really well. But when it comes to the story, though it is really nice, still it really leaves a lot of points in the audience’s mind. A person might not be able to detect these loopholes, but for someone who would watch the movie with full attention, these are some obvious doubts. Did you watch the movie? How many of these points did you notice? If you did not notice them, then you should watch the movie again to see if they make any sense to you.
Knives Out Review Common Sense Media Release
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Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is a wildly successful mystery writer and he’s dead. His housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson) finds him with a slit throat and the knife still in his hand. It looks like suicide, but there are some questions. After all, who really slits their own throat? A couple of cops (the wonderful pair of LaKeith Stanfield and Noah Segan) come to the Thrombey estate do a small investigation, just to make sure they’re not missing anything, and the film opens with their conversations with each of the Thrombey family members. Daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a successful businesswoman with a shit husband named Richard (Don Johnson) and an awful son named Ransom (Chris Evans). Son Walt (Michael Shannon) runs the publishing side, but he’s been fighting a lot with dear old dad. Daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) is deep into self-help but has been helping herself by ripping off the old man. Finally, there’s Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), the real heroine of “Knives Out” and Harlan’s most trusted confidante. Can she help solve the case?
The case may have just been closed if not for the arrival of the famous detective Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, who spins a southern drawl and oversized ego into something instantly memorable. Blanc was delivered a news story about the suicide and envelope of money. So someone thinks this is fishy. Why? And who? The question of who brought in Blanc drives the narrative as much as who killed Harlan. Johnson is constantly presenting viewers with the familiar, especially fans of the mystery movie—the single palatial setting, the family of monsters, the exaggerated detective—but then he subverts them every so slightly, and it feels fresh. So while Blanc feels like a Poirot riff, Johnson and Craig avoid turning it into a caricature of something we’ve seen before.
Craig is delightful—I love the excitement in his voice when he figures things out late in the film—but some of the cast gets lost. It’s inevitable with one this big, but if you’re going to “Knives Out” for a specific actor or actress, be aware that it’s a large ensemble piece and your fave may get short shrift. Unless your favorite is Ana de Armas, who is really the heart of the movie, allowing Johnson to imbue “Knives Out” with some wonderful political commentary. The Thrombeys claim to love Marta, even if they can’t remember which South American country she comes from, and Don Johnson gets a few razor sharp scenes as the kind of guy who rants about immigration before quoting “Hamilton.” It’s not embedded in the entire piece as much as “Get Out,” but this “Out” is similar in the way it uses genre structure to say something about wealth and social inequality. And in terms of performance, the often-promising de Armas has never been handed a role this big, and she totally delivers.