Reviews of Knives Out (2019) and related work
- Sequel: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Knives Out (2019
)
Seen in 2021.
A complex, good-natured parody of implausible Agatha Christie-style murder mysteries. It doesn’t go over the top into ZAZ territory, it doesn’t satirize the source material, and the ending is highly moral. Within those boundaries it’s very well made, edging out the breezier and more action-oriented Murder Mystery (2019). The lighting and camera work are particularly lovely. The jokes about US political polarization are good, and I personally appreciate that when the board game Go is played, it’s the children’s version, yet nobody acknowledges that fact.
‣ Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Seen in 2022.
In the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, a billionaire brings some old acquaintances to a little Greek island for a murder mystery.
More of the same with more subjective footage and information known to the detective but actively withheld from the audience: Dirty tricks in this genre. Once again, the ending is highly moral, and well timed: As I watched this movie on New Year’s Eve, 2022, Elon Musk paraded his intellect on Twitter, a company he was destroying from the inside after tricking himself into paying too much money for it. Tesla stock had lost two thirds of its value over the preceding 100 days and the whole world was laughing at Musk, who had not even founded Tesla. Miles Bron is a good caricature of such men, but the scene of his ultimate defeat looks as fake as Big Bug (2022).