The Best "Go" Player Wins

Rating: 10/10 (13 January 2020)

Big SPOILER alert.
This movie makes NO sense if you just sit there like a potato and buy the premise that the guy who goes to jail at the end is the one who is "really" responsible for the crime (not the murder, maybe, in a way). Yes, it's hard to wrap your mind around it, but "Knives Out" subverts the "who-dunnit" genre and that probably upsets some fans of the familiar old-fashioned detective story.
So what? In the end, this film actually twists around and pays homage, true homage, to an old stale movie trope. The mystery is solved in an impossible way. Something, maybe good, maybe not, triumphs over something else and it's all mind bending in a way that would make Christopher Nolan proud.
Let's review. ALL of the clues point to the "least likely" suspect, but every red herring leads us to the "obvious" bad-guy. Is it him? Is he the "killer?" Well, if you just sit there and burp up your popcorn and don't think-- yeah, I guess the spoiled jerk is the bad-guy and goes to jail.
But... who was the best Go player? Marta. Marta hides behind the goofiest "tell" in modern memory, she vomits when she lies! Oh baby, that's CORNY. But she USES it to set a trap. All the idiots in this family of wealthy heels fall into it, and eventually the one guy who sees the truth understands that she's the one who orchestrated the whole thing, BUT he decides to let her go. She really is a "good person." The rotten family she worked for DESERVE what they get. Justice. More important than "truth?" So Marta, who "did it," goes free with all the money in her pocket, leaving room for a sequel when they realize that they've been conn3d.
Fun movie. Not a "who-dunnit." More of a "con job" movie in the tradition of "The Sting" or "American Hustle." Ten stars.