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I watched the new Knives Out movie, and while the mystery plot was fun enough, my enjoyment of the movie was severely hampered by politics. I saw the previous Knives Out movie so I knew what to expect, but I do feel like this just went above and beyond. Minor spoilers to follow.
My wife was disappointed that I let politics ruin a good movie for me, but really, I think that the filmmakers honestly don't want you to view this movie as just a fun murder mystery without the context of politics. The movie is all about making a heavy handed political statement.
The movie just seemed like a pulpit for Rian Johnson to talk about how much he hates Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and various other people. I almost feel like the entire plot is really the secondary goal. The main goal of him making this was to implant and grow a brain worm in the audience that every famous rich person is connected, really part of a cabal that got what they got through no talent of their own, took advantage of individuals and the world at large, contribute nothing, and are evil, vile, worthless, and bratty pieces of shit.
Nowhere in the movie do they ever display the slightest amount of sympathy for anyone besides the detective and the poor black woman who was taken advantage of (major spoiler:or her secret twin sister ). I guess this movie really makes me feel like in order to write good compelling characters, you really have to love them, or have the capacity to love them, or maybe just respect and understand and empathize with them. Rian Johnson clearly does none of this, and his utter contempt for them just seeps through. He comes across like a high school kid writing screenplays to take pot shots at people he hates.
I don't know, I really can't believe that this movie has gotten so much praise. It really irritates me, and just seems like lazy complaining.
Other minor, non political gripe:
The movie came to a screeching halt when they decided to have the entire 3rd quarter of the movie as a flashback. I think small flashbacks are great in mystery stories, but the decision to have over a half hour told in flashback made me feel like it was dragging, and made me want it to just get back to advancing the plot.
Johnson has apparently set his particular calling card as a director to be "All extremely rich people are simply irredeemable fuckups and only obtain their wealth by luck; the only people who are trustworthy, empathetic, or heroic are the salt-of-the-earth working class." No comment on the fact that the working class also correlates with Trump support in the U.S.
He even shoehorned that into STAR WARS of all things.
Which is... FINE, but he ends up making the rich characters into blatant, openly incompetent fuckups, and not just subtly ineffective, nor does he add any other facets to their character. So when he doesn't give them any moments which might allow the viewer to empathize with them and he does minimal work to humanize them, the ultimate effect (to me) is that it feels smug and nasty.
And likewise, I don't even buy that they 'lose' in the end. The irony here is that Johnson wants to have his cynical cake and eat his idealistic ice cream too. That is, he posits a view of the world where rich (but incompetent) people dominate most industries and use their influence to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. There's no way for the common man to strike at them in a way that will matter.
Then, enter Benoit Blanc, who can outmaneuver the rich dummies, see through their deceptions and machinations, and use their own blackened souls against them to arrange for their downfall, then handing that off to the enlightened everywoman to enact the final, decisive blow. Johnson works very hard to make his 'good' ending irrefutable and irreversible.
But to believe that you'd have to ignore the rest of the message that wealthy, connected people are able to use their influence to manipulate outcomes. In this world, shortly after the movie ends, all the wealthy assholes are going to hide behind expensive lawyers, bring in PR firms to spin the story, and while yes they're almost certainly financially ruined for the short term, I rather doubt they will end up serving jail time or losing 'everything.' Okay, the billionaire will probably serve a LOT of jail time for murder (but maybe not) so that's something. But in order to believe that the 'bad' people 'lose,' you have to both believe that all of them were 'bad,' and that they have fully 'lost.' And I wasn't convinced of either by the end. And that's because of the world Johnson set up for us, not my own cynicism!
He wants to push forth the idealistic vision that a smart, educated, clever interloper like Blanc, who champions all the 'right' ideas too, can assist an underprivileged, exploited commoner to win against connected, wealthy idiots through sheer effort and persistence when the stakes are high enough. But then he has to end the movie before reality ensues and the world he posited reasserts and reverses most of the alleged gains.
Side note, whilst I get that destroying the Mona Lisa as a cultural artifact to get some revenge is an iffy message, I think the core idea that the Protag had been extensively and personally wronged by the villains and thus wouldn't give a damn about destroying a mere physical possession was completely valid. A human being was killed, and you're more outraged at the destruction of a tiny little portrait?
That might be one of the few truly interesting points the movie makes.
Also, the real 'twist' wasn't one that the viewer could have reasonably guessed in advance, I think, so I find it a bit bad faith to hide so much from the viewer, rather than merely misdirect their attention so they miss or misinterpret the clues. There were NO clues as to the switcheroo, so the audience was just left in the complete dark until the flashbacks, which recontextualized everything. And that was neat, but a bit unbecoming of an actual mystery story where the audience is looking for clues. But then again, with modern genre-savvy audiences it may have been impossible to fool them if there were any clever clues hidden in plain sight, so perhaps this was the only way to pull it off.
All that said, I still enjoyed it. I don't think one can effectively deny Johnson's pure technical skill as a writer and director.
P.S. people keep saying he's targeting Joe Rogan and Elon Musk specifically, and I see why, but that seems more based on the particular cultural moment rather than the intent when he wrote or even directed it.
The billionaire asshole is much closer to a pastiche of Steve Jobs and other tech founders than Musk in particular. Especially since Musk, of all Billionaires, is not the one who would spend gratuitous amounts of money on a private island with a giant architectural abomination on display. As far as I know, he doesn't own an island, or even a yacht. So 90% of the 'critiques' in this film would roll off him anyway.
The redpill manosphere streamer character also doesn't really fit Rogan. Rogan of course didn't 'lucky break' his way into prominence, he had a lengthy career as a comedian and hosted mainstream TV shows before starting his podcast. And by and large he is known for being a genuine and empathetic guy rather than loudly spouting any particular ideological viewpoint. And given his deal with Spotify, he wouldn't need to cater to some Billionaire's whims to maintain his platform. So again, 90% of the 'critiques' in the film would roll off him.
I genuinely don't think these were the targets Johnson had in mind when writing. He wrote much more generalized sendups of a given cultural archetype and viewers projected the current pop culture bugaboos onto it.
It's not such a terrible fit for Star Wars; in the first movie Luke was a
dirtwater farmer, and the only rich person outside the Imperial hierarchy we saw (or didn't see, Special Edition be damned) was crimelord Jabba the Hut. The next rich person we see is an Imperial collaborator (Lando), though he is later partially redeemed.Correct, that would be Larry Ellison (though I don't know about the architectural abomination part).
If we frame Star Wars as mostly about plucky underdogs overcoming insurmountable odds, there's some congruence of message there.
I think the issue is that he had to go to the next level with that whole Canto Bight sequence and imply, straight up, that the only reason the First Order can prosecute a war is because it buys weapons from these war profiteers, who are explicitly only in it for money and thus wish to drag things out as long as possible. It's not enough for the First Order to just be an unambiguously bad force, there has to be some rich people 'behind the scenes' making money off their existence.
And as mentioned, Johnson makes them irredeemable, rather than as with Lando people with warped but extant moral compasses who might still do the 'right' thing.
And add onto the 'reality ensues' issue Johnson has: in that film, everything the protags did during that sequence will be reversed immediately.
Did Lando even have a warped moral compass? From his perspective:
Lando is currently a productive and contributing member of society who is also responsible for the lives and livelihood of his many employees. The Empire shows up immediately before an old criminal buddy is set to arrive. Vader tells him to cooperate in arresting one of the guys (not his buddy) or else they will conquer Cloud City (stick), but will otherwise leave him and all his people alone (Carrot). Vader lies to him about the fate of the others and does not reveal that Han will be given to Jabba.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=q8irC6QMH9A https://youtube.com/watch?v=6_P1eWl77vo
Here's what Lando does after he figures out Vader lied to him:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ojoz7qO8XP8
It's not clear to me what Lando should have done differently.
I don't think we even know that we know that Lando knew why the Empire was after Han, right? Like, the man was a common criminal, and the imperials might just be running a typically heavy-handed regular police operation. He obviously didn't find out about the whole "ritual torture to lure a guy for a magic duel" thing until later.
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If we look at the whole of his history then I'd say his compass doesn't point 'true north' in much the same way that Han's doesn't. Remember Han was gonna just abandon the Rebellion after completing his job, and probably only came back because he wanted to bang the Princess (and felt some guilt or something, I guess).
Hard to say. Resign his post so as not to be a 'Collaborator' and attempt to warn Han not to show up?
The fact that he has no reason to care about Luke is valid, but also not a complete excuse.
Maybe seek some additional, tangible assurances that the deal won't be altered rather than going with a handshake verbal agreement. Lando of all people should expect double crossing.
I'm not saying he shouldn't have taken Vader at his word, but is it fair to say that when the head of the Waffen SS shows up in your town demanding cooperation, you should maybe be a little bit less than fully compliant, and assume something sinister is afoot?
This also doesn't take away from Lando's heroism in the end, because he still did genuinely risk his life in an act of defiance.
Resign his post, get arrested, Han shows up and they get captured when their ship lands ("they showed up right before you did"). Vader loses his dramatic entrance but still accomplishes ihis mission.
Seek tangible assurances from a guy he has absolutely no leverage against? (A point illustrated by the second clip I linked.)
Near as I can tell, the best thing Lando can do is cooperate until he gets the opportunity to actually do something that might work.
This hinges on just how much Lando trusted Vader to keep his word.
It sure looks like Lando didn't choose to resist until it became clear he was going to get screwed either way.
If he warns Han not to show up Vader doesn't accomplish the mission.
I could go into a long discussion on the strategy of refusing to comply with 'evil' vs. going along until the best opportunity to defect arises.
But we wouldn't have much of a story if Lando took the former option, so in the context of the movie, I'm willing to concede the point.
Yeah a fair bit is contingent on stuff like "how feasible was it for Lando to send a message to Han" and "exactly how bad is it all of Lando's people if he resists" - all of which is off screen. (Near as I can tell the answer to the latter is "very bad" given Lando's warning that everyone needs to GTFO.)
But given Lando's later actions (rescue Han/blow up the death star instead of running off and continuing his career as a con man), I'd suggest he's probably a decent enough guy who was put into a tough situation where all choices involve the Empire harming someone.
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