Rian Johnson operates in the space left behind by Agatha Christie by taking Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc from an island of rich influencers to a small-town church parish ruled over by a harsh, ruthless, Josh Brolin-played pastor with an iron grip on a small but devoted band of followers; turning those newcomers away in favour of his loyal flock. When Jefferson Wicks is killed mid-sermon, suspect number one is immediately Josh O’Connor’s Jud Duplenticy, who has killed a man in a boxing ring in the past and threatened Wicks hours before. Blanc is not so sure: every one of the flock has a motive, and every one of them must be questioned. Be they Glenn Close’s loyal bookkeeper Martha Delacroix, Kerry Washington’s Vera Draven, Andrew Scott’s sci-fi writer Lee Ross radicalised by Wicks into becoming a right-wing lunatic, Jeremy Renner’s scorned divorced dad turned alcoholic Doctor, or Daryl McCormack’s failed right wing politician returning from a stint with the GOP to his small town intent on launching a YouTube Channel. As ever the cast of suspects is eclectic – and there’s no easy answer, even for Blanc – who has the case of the locked room. Will this be the case that Blanc can’t solve?
For this one Blanc takes a backseat and this is a movie that is Josh O’Connor’s role first and foremost; Blanc doesn’t show up until the beginning of the second act and when he does, it’s with that swagger that Craig comes in and makes it his own. It’s to O’Connor’s skill as an actor that he can keep up with Craig’s wit and brawn, the audience playing with the expectations of what a Benoit Blanc-type celebrity detective is as much as the characters who are aware of his existence. He tells them of stories that have happened off screen, and everyone is aware of his weighted reputation which here, is used against him. The mystery is one not just of murder but of a crisis in faith; Johnson tapping into rich religious themes that undercut this film – making Blanc a central character here would almost feel wrong, he’s on paper the very opposite of everything the religious Jud stands for – an atheist, problem-solver who applies logic to his deductions. Like every Knives Out film before it Blanc finds himself having to operate in a pre-established world where all of these characters have existing relationships – there’s a lot of jokes at the expense of the Netflix deal but it never establishes itself into too self-aware territory, and it’s very online – all the characters have some degree of social commentary running through them, the more that progresses the more you see how Wicks is weaponizing their loyalty into something sinister.
This feels like what you wanted A Haunting in Venice to be; Kenneth Branagh’s third Poriot mystery that was; whilst the strongest of the three, still significantly lacking. Here the whodunit genre may have been well-trodden by now – you need only look at the adaption of Richard Osman’s on The Thursday Murder Club debuting straight to Netflix to a collective shrug of indifference earlier this month, but the charm of Blanc, the social commentary and the rip-roaring thrill ride that Johnson is able to deliver from his blockbuster experience of working on the best Star Wars film; The Last Jedi, acting as such a stark contrast from the light-soaked nature of Glass Onion that it operates in a different field completely; borrowing as much from the gothic nature of Edgar Allen Poe as much as Christie. One of the interesting decisions was to cast Jeremy Renner – who was the butt of a joke in the second film, but instead, plays it straight here – and the film feels almost refreshingly removed from the 2020s state-of-the-nation drama that the last one was. Whilst the online sphere and social commentary is very much a thing – this is no Eddington – it’s almost timeless in comparison.
And it’s all the better for it, Johnson using Brolin’s Wicks as a Trumpian figure on a rampage of selfishness of power doomed to be able to do any real good is the perfect foil for Blanc even though the two never meet. His presence is felt everywhere in the story and the mystery remains a yarn from beginning to end. If you enjoyed the first two of course you’ll be there for the next one. And of course – if there was ever any doubt, the music bangs – this is Tom Waits territory we’re talking about here.