Knives Out (2019)

There is something indescribably satisfying about watching that final scene where the sleuth sits down the cast - and by extent, the audience - to walk everyone through the steps for how they determined who the criminal was. 
In a movie as spectacularly well-done as “Knives Out” (2019), there was no point where you feel left out of the final reveal. When Benny (Daniel Craig) led us through his deductive reasoning while flashbacks showed us every step of his logic, I never felt like something had been skipped - everything we needed for clues had been laid out, all of the answers were there, waiting for us, from secret stashes to character names to references to set pieces.
I’m not nearly smart enough to have pieced it all together as I watched, but I didn’t feel cheated when the answer came through, unlike “Red Sparrow” (2018) when they framed the antagonist.

As it’s a murder mystery, I don’t want to share too many details of the plot, lest I accidentally spill the beans, so I’ll leave it at this:
When noted mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) was found dead in his home, via suicide, a mysterious benefactor hired Detective Benoit “Benny” Blanc to see if Harlan truly did die by his own hand.
The movie was told non-chronologically, allowing us to see different characters’ takes on any given scene, watch details get dropped in, and feed us that slow-drip of clues that we could possibly pieces together.

Benny was accompanied by two cops, Elliot (LaKeith Smith) and Wagner (Noah Segan), who made for some outstanding comedic relief without ever getting close to being ‘too much.’ Wagner particularly so, as he was clearly a fan of murder mystery books and kept excitedly referencing them as they found clues in the case, like a kid getting new toys.

Chris Evans played one of the relatives and was the ultimate antithesis to his clean-cut boyscout Steve Rogers role from “The Avengers.” It was an outstanding bit to see him in, if for no other reason than simply to watch him be mean.

The weirdest part of this movie to me was that Daniel Craig had a southern drawl. Having only ever seen him in roles with his native British accent, this American twang was weird and it took me a while to get used to, but he was consistent with it and it never actually felt out of place.

The rest of the cast, from the red herring to the lecheous family, were all played flawlessly by an all-star team, including the likes of Michael Shannon, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Frank Oz. Every single person gave you plenty of reason to think they were the villain, even as other characters managed to stack the deck against themselves.

I refuse to call this a “comedy,” because it wasn’t. 
It was, however, a serious flick with a dry, witty sense of humor that you could feel throughout, showing up constantly in wry jokes and puns, facial expressions and set pieces.
There were a few times where I was concerned that the movie would drop its relatively light-hearted ‘mystery’ pretenses and become some kind of horror film, but fortunately it stayed far away, quickly reigning itself in any time it started to stray.

The one and only thing I could critique about this was the soundtrack, and my problem was that there simply wasn’t enough of it. There were a few pieces of music throughout, and a couple particularly thematic swells, but considering the set of the mansion of the late Mr. Thrombey, they could have definitely included a few more classical pieces.
But, truly, that’s just a nitpick. The music selection they used did fit perfectly.

The glorious part of a potential murder mystery series is that, as long as the only connecting thread between the films is the detective, you could make as many movies as you want. 
This one could very easily lead into a series, giving us a modern Sherlock Holmes for the masses and a perfect post-Bond role for Daniel Craig.

Ultimately, the part of this movie that blew me away was how every single detail was wrapped up with a neat little bow. Off-hand comments at the beginning tied to answers at the end, items reference here were shown off there, character traits given just enough screen time turned out to be revelatory. None of it felt ham-fisted or forced or any kind of Deus Ex Machina’d in; everything flowed, organic and fitting. 
I’ve never seen so many little things make such an important impact all at once and all so fluidly. That was a marvel in and of itself.

Someone described this to me as “Like ‘Clue’”; someone in the movie even said “Harlan lived in a damned Clue house!”
That would be the perfect description, if you had to play a dedicated game of Clue to suss out each of the three murder components, before playing a fourth game to make your final accusation. The depth and complexity of this was only rivaled by how perfectly everything fit together for the conclusion.

Disregard whatever misgivings you have for Rian Johnson for what he did for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” (2018) - he made a truly knock-out ‘who-dun-it’ that’s absolutely worth your time.
I was on the edge of my seat for the entire flick, constantly second guessing my guesses on who I thought it would be.
This is worth your time and money. The visuals weren’t quite worth it to see it on an IMAX screen, but I’m still giving it a 5-Claw rating for being so damn-well crafted.