Knives Out (2019) * * *

Directed by:  Rian Johnson

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

Even at a two-hour, ten-minute running time, Knives Out moves briskly and keeps us guessing, although the resolution suggests many of the suspects were kept around just to be suspects.    Knives Out contains an A-list supporting cast with each given a scene or two to relish and then more or less kept on the sidelines.    The major players are led by Benoit Blanc (Craig), a private investigator anonymously hired to get to the bottom of the apparent suicide of Harlan Thrombrey (Plummer), a wealthy mystery writer whose death is shrouded in a cloud of suspicion.    He seemingly slit his own throat, so the local police think it's an open and shut case.    Blanc suspects foul play, but how was it done?   And by whom?

Knives Out, written and directed by Rian Johnson (The Last Jedi, Looper), is a whodunit in the Agatha Christie tradition in which each player's guilt or innocence is toyed with.   We can't rule out anyone, yet we know only one or two cast members' involvement will emerge as significant.   The ending doesn't cheat, and it plays fair by not springing another suspect on us in the eleventh hour.   Harlan's family, consisting of daughter Linda (Curtis),a successful business owner, Linda's cheating husband Richard (Johnson), their openly freeloading son Hugh (Evans), hapless Walt (Shannon), who runs Harlan's publishing business, and Harlan's ultra liberal daughter-in-law Joni (Collette), has reasons to want to kill Harlan, and have a particular interest in the will reading with a revelation which stuns the gold-digging Thrombreys. 

The character who takes center stage is Marta (de Armas), Harlan's Paraguayan nurse who is the picture of innocence and may or may not be the prime suspect, or someone who is being framed.    Harlan is not shown as an irascible codger, but a sensible, caring man who is tired of his family sponging off of him.    The free ride is over for many of his kin, and that doesn't sit well.   

As played by Craig, Blanc is a private eye with a Foghorn Leghorn Southern drawl and an eye for detail which would rival Sherlock Holmes.   Or at least Hercule Poirot.    Craig has fun with the role; fun he didn't allow himself when playing James Bond.    There are even political debates between Richard (a clear Trump supporter) and Joni (a clear Trump non-supporter), although these are pigeonholed in without any reason for existing.   This crew has enough to fight over without introducing modern-day politics into the mix.