This movie stars a whole lot of currently famous actors, actors that have been considered legends of the big screen and newcoming actors. Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana De Armas, Christopher Plummer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Frank Oz, Jaeden Martell, Katherine Langford… Just to name a few. So many actors in this good old-fashioned Whodunnit? which isn’t lacking in humor as well. It’s not the kind of humor that will make you laugh out loud, maybe just bring a smile to your face. Anyway, let’s get to the plot.
When famous crime novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead in his office shortly after his 85th birthday, detective Benoit Blanc is sent in to investigate. Detective Benoit Blanc is sent in to investigate and learns that Harlan’s relationships with his family had become strained: he threatened to expose his son-in-law Richard for cheating on his wife Linda, cut off his daughter-in-law Joni’s allowance for stealing from him, fired his younger son Walt from his publishing company, and had an altercation with his grandson Ransom. So, this makes pretty much everybody the suspect in this movie including Ana De Armas’ character Marta Cabrera who was the last one to see him alive. I’m not gonna say anything else about the plot.
This is a damn good murder mystery. And it’s also original. It’s not based on any pre-existing books, movies or TV shows. This movie is written and directed by Rian Johnson. He revealed several classic mystery thrillers and mystery comedies as influences but that’s it. It’s just influences. Reading other reviews for this movie, most are praising it for it’s originality and a great ensemble cast. On the Rotten Tomatoes website, the movie holds a critic approval rating of 97% based on 420 reviews, with an average rating of 8,3/10*. Even the audience approval rating is high and stands at 92% with and average rating of 4,4/5*. And that’s just the average rating, so, that’s saying something. It was also included in American Film Institute’s top 10 films of the year. This is a really good movie and I can’t wait for the sequel. Yes, a sequel. The sequel has been given the green light in early February by the production company behind this movie, Lionsgate films.
This movie is a little too long. It’s 2 hours and 10 minutes and it kind of drags a bit through the middle. That’s just a minor issue I have with this movie and it won’t affect my grade, so, I’m giving it 10/10*.
