Knives Out Trailer Reveals Rian Johnson's Star-Studded, Madcap Murder Mystery
Everyone who's anyone is in Knives Out, but who is the one that committed a devilish crime?
Lionsgate has unleashed the first trailer for Knives Out, the eccentric new feature from Looper and Star Wars: The Last Jedi writer-director Rian Johnson that brings together some of the biggest and brightest stars in Hollywood.
A modern take on the murder mystery genre, Knives Out stars LaKeith Stanfield, Daniel Craig, and Noah Segan as a trio of detectives investigating the suspicious death of a presumably wealthy patriarch Harlem Thrombey, played by Christopher Plummer, on the night of his 85th birthday. Stanfield's character (self-identified as Detective Lieutenant Elliot, but billed as Troy Archer) grills members of the extended Thrombey family — which include Jamie Lee Curtis' Linda Robinson, Michael Shannon's Walt Robinson, Chris Evans' Ransom Robinson, Don Johnson's Morris Robinson, and characters played by Toni Collette, Ana de Armas, Katherine Langford, and Jaeden Martell — about the circumstances surrounding Harlem's passing. Linda answers sharply, "The party? Pre-my dad's death? Oh, it was great."
The Knives Out trailer ramps up in intensity when Craig's character, Detective Benoit Blanc, orders the family to stay inside their estate home until the investigation is complete. Things are kicked up another notch after Shannon's Walt asks the detectives if actually believe one of Harlem's own family members murdered him.
"You all love twisting the knife into one another," says Blanc in the trailer just after it shows a shot of a gloved hand stabbing a needle of morphine into someone's body. This prompts an argument in which Evans' Ransom points the finger at his family and uses some profane language to suggest what they do next. (Hint: The phrase is two words long and rhymes with "meet Mitt.")
The animosity in the household — paired with a dead body in a basement, vials of morphine, and knives strewn about the property, organized in holsters, and assembled into a halo behind a grand chair — drives Blanc to suspect foul play was involved in Harlem's death... and that no one in the family can be eliminated as a suspect.
Knives Out is something fresh for Johnson, who has mostly stuck to the sci-fi and action genres over the last few years, though it is somewhat of a return to form following the 2005 release of his neo-noir mystery Brick and the 2008 launch of his caper comedy-drama The Brothers Bloom. Following the intense backlash Johnson received from Star Wars fans for his work on The Last Jedi, he doesn't so much have something to prove as he has an opportunity to show audiences exactly what he's capable of. As teased in the trailer, Knives Out will be a "whodunnit like no one has ever dunnit" — but it's also looking like it will be a major turning point for Johnson. Heck, Knives Out might even be amazing enough to convert Last Jedi naysayers into Johnson fans.
Get into Knives Out when the film hits theaters on November 27, just in time for Thanksgiving.