Knives Out

Knives Out is an exciting, hilarious, beautiful, and unpredictable, masterpiece. The casting choices are amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The only real issue with this film is its pacing. The first roughly thirty minutes of the film are very slow and dialogue driven. However, without this part of the movie where the dialogue is really important you would not understand how all the pieces are related. It wouldn't have allowed the viewer to truly understand how the family dynamics come into play and why they could be the murderer. It’s boring yes, but a necessity to the plot overall. When the movie picks up it gets really clever and interesting plot wise. The whole film has you guessing, who did it? Everyone has a possible motive, and this family is full of surprises. It’s unpredictable, filled with twists and turns as new information is revealed. This film is also extremely funny for a murder mystery movie. My favourite scene is when Chris Evans’ character Ransom tells each member of the family one by one to “eat shit” and then to “definitely eat shit”. Another funny scene is when Marta is driving away with Ransom and she is driving really fast so he says “alright baby driver” in reference to the film Baby Driver.




Chris Evans’ character Ransom is the real comedic relief in this movie and was my favourite of the family. This is a different style role for Chris Evans and I think he did a really good job with it. He proved that he can be more than just Captain America with this film. Although I thought it was funny that the Boston native did not keep his Boston accent in the film as it is set there. Instead he uses what we call his “Captain America voice”. At the same time, it does work, making the upper class rich guy sound prestigious. The whole cast is amazing in this movie and did a good job bringing their characters from page to screen.




On a technical perspective, I liked the film’s use of colour and lighting. The film uses similar tones and colours consistently throughout. As well as using interesting pieces for the setting for example the circle of knives in the room where they question everyone. This prop eventually becomes a significant part of the plot when someone tries to take a knife off the display. The film goes through a variety of different camera angles and shot types that are strategically used to enhance certain scenes. It is a clever use of the camera to make a scene seem more important or look visually better than a still camera would. To conclude, this film with only one Oscars nomination for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ was snubbed out of other categories like ‘Best Picture’.