Knives Out is a new crime drama directed, written and partly produced by Rian Johnson, the director of Looper and Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi.

In the film, the successful crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead on his estate. Harlan recently had his 85th birthday which makes all the guests of his birthday party a suspect of the murder. Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is now trying to investigate what happened and who is responsible for the death of Harlan Thrombey.

This film is a new murder mystery film such as the 1985 film Clue, the film version of the board game Cluedo. As a viewer you try to discover together with the detective who is responsible for the death of the murdered character. Unfortunately, as a viewer you get more information about the murder mystery at a time than the characters in the film itself. So as a viewer you already know a little more than the characters and you can start to get ahead of the story. Rian Johnson tries to confuse you as a viewer with astray. Many of these traces are unfortunately not appropriately or clearly brought forward in the film, which means that final disclosures may seem somewhat unclear. Because of this lack of clarity, the film comes across as somewhat lengthy. With the film they try to explain everything to the viewers at the end, but this goes against the self-examination for which fans of murder mystery films watch such films.

The cast of this film consists of many great actors and actresses such as Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson and Christopher Plummer. Daniel Craig uses a separate accent in the film all the time, which sometimes makes him look more comical than really as a serious detective. Of the cast, Ana de Armas comes out best in the film as the maid of the deceased. As maids, she plays a major role in gathering information about the murder mystery, because she knows all the family members and worked for them. Furthermore, Michael Shannon manages to provide a few comic moments in the film as the youngest son of the deceased.