Daniel Craig, Lakeith Stanfield and Noah Segan in 'Knives Out' Agatha Christie next to the Bible, she’s the next bestseller. So, it’s weird to say she’s underrated, but I feel like she. Looks like Daniel Craig has a new movie franchise after ending his role as James Bond. Craig is to star in two sequels to the 2019 'Knives Out' crime caper that will stream on Netflix in a multi. 'Knives Out,' an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery, starred Craig as debonair private detective Benoit Blanc along with a star cast including Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Ana de Armas and Christopher Plummer. The Lionsgate film had a modest $40 million budget and went on to make $311 million at the global box office. Knives Out is a 2019 American mystery film written and directed by Rian Johnson, and produced by Johnson and Ram Bergman.It follows a master detective investigating the death of the patriarch of a wealthy, dysfunctional family. The film features an ensemble cast including Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield. Knives Out first look: Daniel Craig and Rian Johnson give Agatha Christie a fond tweak Not so much a whodunnit as a whollbethefallguy, Rian Johnson’s modern remix of the classic country-house detective mystery is a hoot, not least when Daniel Craig’s flamboyant detective is on screen.

Well, today I’m going to talk about something I don’t normally do on this blog… talk about a modern, theatrically released movie that doesn’t happen to be an adaptation of an existing mystery franchise. That said, it does have a definite tie to Cozies – it was actually the expressed intent of Rian Johnson, Director/Producer/Writer of Knives Out to produce “an old fashioned murder mystery. Like an Agatha Christie, I love her!” Well, I certainly agree with that sentiment! And I was incredibly pleasantly surprised to find that Johnson’s 2019 movie actually felt like a modernization of an Agatha Christie… and it’s better than most of those!

To start off with, the plot is pure classic mystery. When wealthy, eccentric, cantankerous mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey (played by Christopher Plummer) is found dead after his 85th birthday party, it seems like a clear-cut case of suicide. However, there’s one thing that keeps the police from just signing it off as suicide – Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig), a renowned private investigator. Benoit Blanc, the so-called “last of the gentlemen sleuths”, has been hired to look into the death. I don’t want to go too far into the plot beyond that, as the movie is far too new for spoilers… I can’t even tell you the other classic mystery that that this movie reminds me of, as I want it to be a surprise!

One thing I can talk about more is the cast, and I can’t say enough good things. As already mentioned, Christopher Plummer does an excellent job as Harlan Thrombey, as well as Daniel Craig, who plays the role of “southern fried detective” Benoit Blanc alternately as mysterious, ridiculous, or insightful, as the moment requires. Wildstar for mac. Equally impressive were many of the other people I would consider “big names” of the cast, like Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays Thrombey’s dry, highly successful daughter Linda. But I was also surprised by many of the other actors and actresses, who are a bit too young for me to be as familiar with them (I am more of a “classic movies fan” than a “modern movie-goer”) such as Ana de Armas (playing the on-site nurse and confidante for Harlan Thrombey), Michael Shannon (as Harlan’s son and head of Harlan’s publishing house), Toni Collette (playing Harlan’s slightly hippy-dippy daughter Joni), and Chris Evans (playing a semi-estranged grandson). I need to stop here with the list, because, honestly, the entire cast does such an excellent job that it would just turn into a copy of the closing credits!

Note that there are a few details that some more sensitive readers should be warned of. First, it isn’t entirely bloodless. Let’s face it – when you stab someone, there’s blood, and while there aren’t exactly buckets of it in this mystery, there are a few moments that might put off squeamish viewers. Likewise, one character does have a particular tell when she lies – violent vomiting, which in practice I personally found more off-putting than the blood. Depending on how seriously you view swearing, there are a few instances of it here – though personally, I wasn’t bothered by either the frequency or severity. And as I said earlier, I’ve seen more extreme examples of most of this in actual modern Christie adaptations than here. There are a few depictions of drug use, though nothing particularly strong. There are also some brief political discussions.

This would normally be a great moment to say “They don’t make ’em like this any more”… except, they did. They just made this one in 2019, and there’s word that there’s a follow-up starring Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc already in the works. I’m certainly looking forward to it, and aside from those who are particularly sensitive to the above issues in their Cozies, I heartily recommend it.

PS: At least as of the time of this posting, Knives Out is available on Amazon Prime streaming.

Agatha Christie’s estate in England has made a concerted effort over the past few years to revitalize the late, great author’s works, particularly in adaptations for the big and small screen. Kenneth Branagh and John Malkovich both rebooted Hercule Poirot in various vehicles, and the BBC produced two critically-acclaimed TV movies with And Then There Were None and The Witness for the Prosecution. Still, the greatest reinvigoration of the Christie conceit may very well be filmmaker Rian Johnson’s new comedy-mystery Knives Out. It’s not a sanctioned work of the estate, but it is a homage to the world’s greatest mystery writer from start to finish. It’s also a deconstruction of her tropes too, as well as a savvy slap to all the conventions of the oodles of inferior mysteries that permeate our screens.

Johnson clearly knows his Christie and riffs on her style throughout, while satirizing and twisting it into its own animal too. The filmmaker includes all of her clichés from a long list of possible suspects to a drawing-room finish where the sleuth explains all. He knows her oeuvre so well that he’s able to honor it and screw with it too, ripping apart its pieces, moving them around, and making the hoary conventions of the procedural genre feel almost completely fresh and vital. Further examining Johnson’s accomplishments here will require some mild spoilers, but nothing will be exposed beyond the first 30 minutes. But indeed, what a first half-hour it is.

Right off the bat, Johnson tells us who died, how he died, and the motives of every one of the victim’s treacherous family. The victim is Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer, as shrewd as ever), a mega-successful mystery author and patriarch of an affluent East Coast family. He’s been found in his home with his throat cut. The coroner ruled it a suicide, but after hearing the testimony of his awful and entitled kin, we suspect otherwise.

Daniel Craig Agatha Christie Movie

Harlan’s awful brood includes Walt (Michael Shannon), the weak head of the family’s publishing company, cheating son-in-law Richard (Don Johnson) stepping out on his brittle wife Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), and mooching daughter-in-law Joni (a scene-stealing Toni Collette). She may be all sweetness and sunshine, but she’s been stealing Harlan’s money to prop up her beauty business and pay college tuition for her spoiled teen Meg (Katherine Lankford).

Johnson tweaks Christie’s tropes here, introducing this long list of scoundrels with title cards so we know them instantly. He also immediately exposes their lies through interviews conducted by local cop Lt. Elliott (LaKeith Standfield), aided by the private eye mysteriously hired to investigate Harlan’s death. That P.I. is one Benoit Blanc, and as played by Daniel Craig, he’s a wickedly witty Southern parody of all of Christie’s eccentric sleuths.

Ana de Armas

Blanc speaks with a genteel drawl that would make Foghorn Leghorn sound like Henry Higgins. He fancies tweed suits, 8” cigars, and blunt put-downs he flicks about like so much cigar ash. His loathing of the Thrombey family is instantaneous, as he exposes all of their lies in what it would take Miss Marple two hours to uncover. The only person in the house earning his respect is Harlan’s caretaker Marta (Ana de Armas). She’s such a good soul that she spontaneously vomits if she fails to be honest. Watching the comely de Armas upchuck repeatedly is one of the film’s funniest running gags.

Even quicker than Blanc’s handiwork is the revelation of just how Harlan died. Johnson pulls the first of many rugs out from under the audience by showing what happened in a precise flashback. It’s ballsy and cheeky, suggesting Johnson clearly has a lot more cards to play, and indeed, he does. By removing the who from the whodunnit Register for mac address. , Johnson sets up the opportunity to showcase even better mysteries swirling all about the gruesome death.

Agatha Christie Books In Order

In the next hour and a half, the shrewd writer/director showcases all kinds of additional skullduggery including another murder, car chases, blackmail schemes, arson, and a secret will. Johnson does well by his cast too, giving a fantastically snide, supporting part to Captain America himself, Chris Evans. Johnson even gives Frank Oz a deliciously droll small part as the family’s long-suffering attorney. All of these machinations play like Christie, albeit on steroids, with so many fun twists and turns that it makes for a hoot and a half.

Even more surprising than Johnson’s serpentine narrative, his vamping of the genre, and a deft ability to turn the story in on itself like a virtual Moebius strip, is the surprising seriousness he paints around the edges. Plummer and de Armas are fantastic together in a very tense and moving 10-minute scene together, and Johnson ensures that her character injects pathos throughout to counter all the snark around her.

The whole cast excels, though Riki Lindome and Jaeden Martell, as Walt’s wife and son, don’t have nearly enough to do. Some characters, like those of Johnson and Curtis, fade as the story continues on too. Still, Craig has never been so loose and wry onscreen, and he’s clearly having a ball playing such a verbose, country-fried ham. He nails his lengthy drawing-room speech at the end too, one that would surely have amused Christie.

Johnson loves the mystery genre and keeps his camera close to the faces of his characters to catch every nuance of deceit flashing across the mugs of these nasty players. The score, editing, and production design are all bright and fun, never letting things get too dark. And one has to appreciate additional genre touchpoints that Johnson ladles in throughout. Is that Andrew Wyke’s life-size, laughing sailor from 1972’s Sleuth in Harlan’s den? I believe so.

Agatha Christie Books

Finding new ways to tell stories is part of every writer or filmmaker’s task and Johnson is exceptional at usurping expectations. He has twisted convention on its ear in noir (Brick in 2005), sci-fi (Looper in 2012), and action-adventure (The Last Jedi in 2017). With Knives Out, he may very well have created his most accessible and entertaining film to date. It’s a crowd-pleaser, one that would’ve delighted Dame Agatha, no mystery about it.

Daniel Craig Agatha Christie Book

View the trailer of Knives Out below: