Continuity mistake: There's a clear mix-up in editing during the car chase. Marta checks her phone twice for Blanc's calls as she tries to get away from the police. The first time the phone signals 9:36 AM, the second time 9:34 AM. (01:31:50)
Knives Out (2019)
3 reviews
Directed by: Rian Johnson
Starring: Toni Collette, Chris Evans, Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas
Your rating
Average rating
(19 votes)
Knives Out is a highly enjoyable whodunit comedy with terrific directing and writing from Rian Johnson and excellent performances from its cast. One of the best films in recent years.
I rented this movie from RedBox.
This is a good solid crime mystery in the same vein as Clue. They even reference Clue once in the film when talking about the house.
At the same time, this takes your typical mystery formula and flips some of the elements on its head, turning the story out in a very different and fun way through the perspective of one of the characters.
And despite the movie actually showing you a lot of what actually happened early on, it still keeps you on your toes, at the edge of your seat waiting to see what happens next.
It's very difficult to talk much about this movie without giving too much away in spoilers, but it's very good. As I was hoping and expecting from Rian Johnson with how good The Last Jedi turned out. Yes I said it.
Mistake Status: Didn't catch any on the first viewing. I'll likely buy and watch this movie again.
This movie deserves praise for being an unconventional wuddunit, but it does not necessarily mean it is a good one. Its structure is not devoid of intriguing aspects, and does a lovely job involving the viewer by putting some real stakes in for the protagonist, going beyond the pure intellectual cat-and-mouse guessing game. The two elements that perplex me, especially considering the wild praise for its cleverness, are the fact that the plot is well structured when it comes to emotion and storytelling but way too rough around the edges in small irritating ways, with large logical loopholes (some may be deliberate, some certainly are not), and most importantly, it utterly wastes about half of its cast giving them practically nothing to do, in part exactly because eliminating entirely the guesswork there's little reason for them to be there except for rather formulaic interactions. I have my reservations about the writing when it comes to dialogues, not so memorable for the most part, and painfully self-aware at times. In fact, I don't really know what to do with the political subtext, or rather, flashing hovertext: it is handled in such a hamfisted way that I am not even sure of its actual meaning. The story itself conveys a 'political' message without any need for actual random buzzwords thrown in all of a sudden.
Good news is that those characters who do get a fair amount of screentime and any weight in the plot work wonderfully. De Armas is very likeable, Craig is hilarious, Evans is charmingly villainous. It's a fun movie, just it feels like parts of the mix did not quite work as smoothly as they were supposed to be, but I suspect it's because Rian Johnson's idea of what is funny or clever do not resonate well with me. It happens!
More mistakes in Knives Out
Benoit Blanc: I suspect foul play. I have eliminated no suspects.
Trivia: K Callan, who plays Christopher Plummer's mother in this film, is actually six years younger than Plummer in real life.
Question: In the flashbacks of Ransom storming out, it's different each time. The first time his Grandma speaks, the second time she's silent, and the third time she's holding cake, when she wasn't the other times. The flashbacks we see don't contradict each other, they're not really portrayed as coming from unreliable narrators, they're generally an honest portrayal of what happens, even when what they're telling the police isn't what we see happen. So why these minor, certainly deliberate, differences? Far as I'm aware it's the only time it happens too, not like there are lots of moments like this.
Answer: Each time, it is being described by a different person. Maybe not all heard her speak.
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Chosen answer: She is holding cake all 3 times, actually, so the only difference is that the first time she speaks. It can be a case of unreliable narrator, but I'd write it down as a mistake (deliberate, probably, as the phrase is important for the plot and they didn't want to hammer it in), since as you said, the other times even when they tell things to the police in a different way from what happened, the details tend to stay consistent, except for parts that are obviously made up, such as who is putting down the birthday cake for Harlan Thrombey therefore appearing subservient and not as close (when Richard tells the story, it's Walt and his wife, when Walt tells the story it is Richard and his wife).
Sammo ★