Classic murder-mystery

Rating: 5/10 (28 April 2020)

Knives out is a typical murder-mystery movie. It is the first movie Rian Johnson made after Star Wars the Last Jedi, and that in itself is more puzzling than anything that you see in the movie.
It is very classical in its approach: there is a murder; it is a mystery of who done it. The twist on the premise is that the murder is not actually a murder and we follow the investigation through the eyes of the perpetrator.
I feel in a lot of ways similar emotion as when watching the Last Jedi. In theme, tone and subject these movies are obviously very different, but there is something distinctively Johnson-esque, to both of them. They are a re-telling in a Rian Johnson fashion of movies/tropes that we are familiar with (that lead to an end-result that is arguably underwhelming).
For one thing all the ingredients are good or excellent. The actors are all great to the point where I regret not seeing more about them. The characters are somewhat stereotypical but that is expected from these types of movies. The set design is cool, it is a mix of quirky and gothic. There are callbacks to classical horror/thrillers, but it remains light and playful. The costumes are also very well made and are used to convey information efficiently. The cinematography is not anything groundbreaking, but I felt that there was an effort to emphasize the sets and the costumes and therefore the put forward the tone and the plot.
The plot is Achilles Heel of the movie. Not that it is bad, but it is merely passable. For all the flair and ingenuity the movie displays it is rather bland. The plot has twists, it had turns. Some characters are charming, some characters are despicable. There not really any element that stands out.
Also you don't really get anything form it. There is no moral, no metaphor. There is not really any kind of reflection on anything.
To be fair, there is a mention of politics in the film, and there might be some commentary on immigration or immigrants. But it is too subtle to be taken seriously. The political commentary the film has, is more evocative than definitive. It feels sneaky. It feels more like a way to ground the film or to do characterization rather than an honest take on the topic. There is one character that is alt-right, but it does not inform on his behavior or his motives. He is just alt-right.
There is no broader meaning to the film.
In a way that was not what I was expecting from the movie, and it is not something the movie advertised. The feeling I have is that this movie, with everything that it is and that is does, could have been a quiet masterpiece. Instead it is rather prude, bland and frankly forgettable.