Knives Out

If you enjoy and old-fashioned cozy-type whodunit about the upper classes (as I do, from time to time) you can’t do better than this. Nasty and grasping people brought together in a spooky old mansion to find out the contents of the rich, grumpy, cynical old patriarch’s will … sure, it’s a cliché, but if done right, it’s a hoot. How much more Agatha Christie can you get? This isn’t the dirty streets of the city, like so many modern mysteries, this is real old school entertainment, a brain teaser that asks the viewer to figure it all out. I didn’t. I never do. You won’t find a better one than this.

The cast is excellent. There’s Daniel Craig with top billing, doing a good job of subbing for Hercule Poirot, though why he was cast as the world-famous detective with the Deep South drawl is beyond me. Also in the cast are Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Colette, Lakeith Stanfield, and Christopher Plummer as the crusty old novelist. Another standout is a relative newcomer in a starring role, a Cuban-Spanish actress named Ana de Armas. She scored a Golden Globe nomination. Rian Johnson wrote and directed it. The reviews were unanimously positive, and we agreed with them. Wouldn’t mind seeing it again soon.