After two weeks of only showing at midnight during the weekend, finally this movie was released yesterday (a bit weird as it was done on Tuesday as opposed to its customary Wednesday release). As it happened, it was shown at the theater near our home at 6.20 PM, so without any hesitation my wife bought the tickets for us. Well we shall go on with this movie then.
Brief Story Line
When a rich novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer - All the Money in the World etc) was found dead in his room, an investigation was done by local police detective Elliot (Lakeith Stanfield - The Girl in the Spider's Web etc) and supported by Trooper Wagner (Noah Segan - Brick etc) together with a well known private investigator Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig - James Bond movies etc) as consultant.
Interviews were later done on the whole family to find out what actually happened that included the eldest daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis - Halloween etc) and her husband Richard (Don Johnson - Miami Vice TV series etc) plus their son Hugh Ransom (Chris Evans - Captain America movies etc), the second daughter in law Joni (Toni Collette - Hereditary etc) and her daughter Meg (Katherine Langford - 13 Reasons Why TV series etc), the youngest son Walt (Michael Shannon - The Shape of Water etc) and his family. Aside from the original family, there was also Harlan's nurse Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas - The Informer etc) and few others who worked at the large house owned by Harlan.
So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this highly interesting mystery movie.
End of Brief Story Line
My wife and I are fans of murder mystery stories and we both love Agatha Christie novels (we had a complete set), Sherlock Holmes and other similar novels, movies & series. Which was why this movie was really a favorite of ours. The way the story was told was one of the highlight we really liked as it was done in a smart & intelligent way to unfold little by little what really happened. And the unique storytelling of what were on people's mind was also really interesting.
What made the movie so intriguing was how the story developed by combining mystery revealing with some truth-hiding process. There were also some elements of dark comedy in here which made the movie did not feel too depressing/overly serious. And despite having 130 minutes duration, it did not feel too long and in fact it felt just nice. I really admire Rian Johnson (previous works included Loopers, Star Wars: The Last Jedi etc) who had done such a great job by directing the large ensemble cast, as well as writing this movie. From what I understood, this is an original screenplay which meant it was not adapted from anything like novel, newspaper, true events etc. And it was highly appreciated as proven by great critical ratings and Golden Globe nominations (including Best Picture).
I also love the cast in this film which were full of well known actors and actresses from the more established Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Don Johnson to the younger generation like Ana de Armas. Now what amazed me was the choosing of Daniel Craig as the American private investigator with his strong southern accent, seeing that he is actually British. To be honest he sounded strange at early part as I was not accustomed of hearing him in such accent but as the movie progressed, I got used to it better. This also proved that he is a great actor (he got Golden Globe nomination for his performance here together with Ana de Armas). And it was nice to seeing Chris Evans in a different role from his superhero persona.
Now as a usual mystery solving movie, the main attraction would be who was the culprit and how it was done. And to my personal opinion, the revealing was done perfectly by Benoit Blanc which would not disappoint murder mystery fans. And it was explained to us in a process which did not make us scratch our heads as we could understand it very clearly. Obviously if you really pay attention to details, you would probably be able to guess who did it too (my wife and I had the same feeling of the real murderer which was proven to be true in the end, although both of us were not really sure how it was done until that big reveal).
Overall this was an entertaining movie. It certainly lived up to the expectations with the high critical rating and I for one really enjoyed it. I would not mind if Rian Johnson do a sequel based on the Benoit Blanc character though that might not be happening as there was no mention of it anywhere. This movie would be a real treat for fans of such genre, but I do not know for sure if it would be enjoyable by audience who prefer action or comedy movie as it was a really different style. So if you are looking for some fun and want to see a movie while thinking whodunit (as long as you do not do it by talking out loud with your friends/partner), then this one is definitely a must see.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
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