'Knives Out' Trailer: Rian Johnson's Stylish Murder Mystery Has One Hell Of A Cast
Rian Johnson built his early career as a genre-hopping filmmaker with his keen ability to craft memorable, meaningful movies, and after his first visit to a galaxy far, far away with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, he's jumping to yet another genre. While he tackled a murder mystery in his debut feature Brick, his newest film, Knives Out, is an Agatha Christie-style whodunnit with a detective (Daniel Craig) investigating a family-centric murder mystery – and Craig is far from the only mega-star in this spectacular cast. Check out the first trailer below.
Knives Out Trailer
Craig's Detective Benoit Blanc is clearly inspired by Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, the best-selling author's famous literary Belgian detective whose eccentric crime-solving tactics rival that of Sherlock Holmes. In the Christie novels, Poirot spoke with a slight accent, and Craig seems like he's having a blast here adopting a Southern accent for the first time since his turn as a southern-fried safe cracker Joe Bang in Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky.
But as you can see, this isn't just a Daniel Craig vehicle – this is a good old-fashioned ensemble piece gathering several of the best actors working today, including Chris Evans, Lakeith Stanfield, Michael Shannon, Ana de Armas, Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, and Christopher Plummer. (Although it seems Plummer doesn't stick around for too long, since the family patriarch is murdered at what's supposed to be his birthday celebration.) I love what Jamie Lee Curtis is doing here; she has an air of almost slinking menace that's aided by that striking display of knives in a circle on the wall. I don't recall having seen Michael Shannon play a character who's quite this indignant recently, and it's always interesting to see Chris Evans take a step away from his Captain America persona, in this case by telling his family members to eat s***.
Johnson again reunites with cinematographer Steve Yedlin, who has shot every one of his films since 2005's high school neo-noir Brick, and I love the look they've created here. It certainly looks like this movie deserves its position in our most anticipated films of 2019 list – a list that's looking sadder with each passing day. Here's hoping this one doesn't let us down.
Knives Out hits theaters on November 27, 2019.