After watching "The Knife Out of the Sheath", the first thing I thought of was a Korean movie. It was the Cannes award-winning film "Parasite" by Bong Joon-ho, who was popular on the Internet not long ago.
"Knife Out of the Sheath" is an American version of "Parasite", although the film looks like a detective story in form.
Most of the plot of the film is unfolded in a big house far from the city. Howard Sloby, an 85-year-old man with white beard and hair, is a famous novelist. His books are very popular and he has made a lot of money in his life. The nurse lives in a big house, which is antique and has a weird atmosphere.
One day, the maid got up early and still made the coffee for the old man as usual, and carried him upstairs to wake him up, only to find that the old man had been cut in his throat by a knife, and he had been dead for a long time.
An anonymous person stuffed a large stack of money into the envelope and gave it to Blanco, a prestigious private investigator, who hired him to work with the police to detect who killed the old man.
This is the beginning of the film. A full detective story, Holmes or Agatha Christie. However, the later development of the plot is more like Agatha’s Murder on the Orient Express: because the night before the father died, it was a family gathering, and all family members were suspected of murdering the father, so everyone, Trapped in a house, began a game of mutual suspicion about who is the murderer. From here you can also see the shadow of the director paying tribute to Agatha, because the director is her fan.
However, the following story is full of the style of a giant drama. The grandchildren and siblings of the Sloan family, who were exquisitely dressed, well-known, and successful, showed their feet under the interrogation and investigation of the police and detective Blanco: they are not as good as they claim to be.
Daughter Linda always said that she started from scratch and became a strong woman in the shopping mall, and then finally her grandson exposed her mother's bottom: she didn't start from scratch, it was her grandpa who "lent" her millions of start-up funds.
The son-in-law Richard is well-dressed and has a sense of superiority from head to toe. In fact, he eats soft food. He not only eats soft food, but also cheats and steals fish. Finally, he was discovered by the father-in-law and the old man. He threatened him to confess, otherwise the old man would tell him. The truth about daughter Linda.
The eldest grandson Lansen is a handsome boy. On the night of his grandfather's death, the two quarreled loudly in the secret room. For the sake of inheritance, the grandson even threatened his grandfather.
The rest of the family members are not good birds. Some have been doing false accounts for many years to steal money from the old man, sending their daughters to the aristocratic school with high tuition, and they are already bankrupt. Help the old man take care of the intellectual property rights to live; the little grandson Jacob is even a racist who makes radical comments on the Internet all day long.
Many of them have deep contradictions with the old man. The old man wants to fire his youngest son and stop letting him run the publishing house. This means that he will be unemployed if nothing is done. The grandson yells at his grandfather in order to fight for the inheritance. The son-in-law is secretly known by the old man and wants to kill him. The daughter-in-law made false accounts to steal money and was exposed by the old man.
Each of them has a motive to kill the old man.
From another point of view, they all depend on the old man to live to some extent, or in other words, rely on the old man's money to lead a comfortable, superior, prosperous, and leisurely life.
Countless details are used in the film to reflect their "superiority." For example, they sat around the fireplace and talked about immigration and refugee issues without hesitation. They even didn't care about the embarrassment of others. They also pulled the old man's private nurse, Marta, who had immigrated from Ecuador, and asked her how she felt. After the father's death, they generously expressed to Marta that the private nurse is also a member of the family. She has taken care of the elderly for so long, and the family will continue to help her financially.
They discussed the situation of the new immigrants with compassion, generosity, and condescension. However, through the development of the plot, the film tells the audience that the Sloan family and these people are all relying on the old man's money in different ways to live a superior life. .
They are the real parasites in this family and even the whole society. The reason why they have the capital to be condescending and qualified to pity others, talk about others, and despise others is not because they are excellent, but because they were born in the family of a rich writer. They have a good father and a good grandfather.
So when the lawyer read out the old man's will, 60 million in cash and investment, the mansion, and the copyright of the novel, all belonged to the private nurse Marta from Latin America, the Sloan family went crazy.
All kinds of foul language came out, and the little grandson who usually swiped the screen of his mobile phone and spoke very little, even his mouth was dirty, pointing to Marta and said: You must have slept with my grandpa! ?
Does it end here, it sounds like a tabloid headline that "the little nanny cheats out the old man's inheritance"?
However, it is precisely from here that "Knife Unsheathed" has really entered the white-hot plot climax. Everything has just begun, and there are many reversals behind it. Audiences who really like to watch turning stories will enjoy this movie.
As for who is the real murderer, you will know only after watching the movie.
Detective Blanco, played by Daniel Craig with a strange accent (it is said to be a southern American accent), is not so much a detective as a spectator in the film. His perspective takes the audience to examine. Every suspect in the house also brought the audience into this guessing game.
In addition to the exquisite conception of the original script, there are two things that surprised me the most about this film.
One is rich details. At the end, you will find that although the stage of the entire movie is just a big house, every detail of the house can be used in the later plot. The coffee that says "My house, my rules, my coffee" The cup, the dog in the yard, the path by the back door, and even the grandmother with only two lines. In the end, you will find that even why it must happen in a big house far from the city is due to plot reasons. This rigorous conception will surprise and delight the audience.
Another highlight is the great metaphor .
Why is it a great metaphor? Because if many metaphors are removed, this film may be a wonderful storytelling story, but with these great metaphors, I personally think that this film actually surpasses Feng Junhao's "Parasite" in many aspects. The plot and in-depth metaphor of the detective case satisfies the audience's refreshing point and interpretation.
Because the screenwriter and director used this film to deeply insinuate, metaphor and satirize the current mentality of American society towards immigrants and refugees. At the end of the film, eldest grandson Lanson questioned the female nurse Marta: "Our family accepts you, lets you enter this house, makes you one of us, but we are the real Sloan family. Here, why do you inherit the inheritance?"
Compared with the implicitness of the Korean director, the film is very obvious in the metaphor of "parasites", and it also triggers deeper thinking: who is qualified to be the true owner and heir of a piece of land and a mansion? Are they the offspring who do nothing, have a vain reputation, have a dirty heart, and are unscrupulous, or are they outsiders with "a kind heart"?
There is a ridiculous setting in the film, that is, there is a seat decorated with hundreds of knives like the iron throne in "Game of Thrones" placed in the father's living room, which seems to be a metaphor. The story of "Nine Kings Seizing the Divine Protagonist".
The last shot at the end of the film is a meaningful stare at each other. The director and screenwriter chose their own standpoint for the topic they metaphorized.
And everything that happened afterwards seemed to be in the old man's expectation and developed as he wished. Is his self-sacrifice and generosity right or wrong?
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