BOUNCING BACK TO MORE EARTHLY CLIMES...!

Rating: 7/10 (24 February 2020)

Rian Johnson's tricksy return to form after his toe dipping into space opera from last year. Borrowing liberally from Agatha Christie, Johnson's investigation into the murder of a successful mystery writer is a crowd pleaser through & through w/enough jibes at the upper class, latent racists & the working stiffs which serve them. Running a little long for this kind of story but still adroitly hitting the right notes (or feints in this case) to keep the audience guessing until the final verbal reveal where either suspicions will be founded or thwarted. Ana de Armas plays the medical assistant caught in the maelstrom of murderous activity (I admit her large part was surprising & welcome) w/the bumbling cops & private investigator played by Lakeith Stansfield & Daniel Craig respectively, trying to catch up on the clues & red herrings laid out like sinister bread crumbs. The assembled cast is superb but special mention for me must go out to genre vet M. Emmet Walsh (still working in his 80's), Frank Oz as the writer's lawyer, K. Callan (she played Ma Kent on the Adventures of Lois & Clark back in 90's) & Marlene Forte who plays de Armas' mom who I worked w/back in the 90's on a couple of independent films in Hoboken.