Director: Rian Johnson

Starring: Daniel Craig, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield, Noah Segan, Christopher Plummer, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell

While the classic whodunit has been all but absent from the big screen for some time, it has been a generic staple of television programming for decades. From Murder, She Wrote to Midsomer Murders to Death in Paradise, the pleasure of its formulaic structure makes it perfect for self-contained, episodic storytelling. With the ridiculously entertaining Knives Out, however, writer-director Rian Johnson reminds us of the effectiveness of the whodunit as a big screen product. Coming up for air between his Star Wars commitments, Johnson returns to his crime roots – his debut feature, 2005’s Brick, transported the hard boiled detective genre to a high school setting – to bring us a film that is equal parts homage to and parody of the classic Agatha Christie formula. Continue reading →