Tag Archives: Neo-noir film

Did U Miss It? Knox Goes Away

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Based on an enthusiastic family recommendation, we streamed (Amazon Prime, I think) the neo-noir thriller Knox Goes Away, starring Michael Keaton, his directorial debut (trailer). It’s the story of a killer-for-hire facing a fatal diagnosis and his attempts to impart a final set of life lessons to his estranged adult son. The son wants to be nothing like his father, but, as it turns out, he has lots to learn about himself and his father.

The plot is clever (written by Gregory Poirier), and you learn that whoever gives Knox and his partner Tom Muncie (played by Ray McKinnon) their assassination assignments picks low-life targets: traffickers, abusers, and the like. In doing bad, they are eliminating worse, or at least the story tries to make their activities as justifiable as possible. Thin. But when Knox messes up, the police are onto him, and what follows is a high-stakes cat-and-mouse-game. The bickering between Detective Emily Ikari (Suzy Nakamura) and one of the detectives she oversees (John Hoogenakker) are priceless.

Keaton plays the struggling Knox to perfection, and the rest of the cast is definitely up to snuff (sorry), including his son, Miles (James Marsden), and the shady guys Knox relies on: the fence Philo Jones (Dennis Dugan) and the old-time thief Xavier Crane, called “X,” played by a hard-(for me)-to-recognize Al Pacino.

We enjoyed the neo-noir touches—the dreamy jazz trumpet, the urban night, the shadowy settings, the slightly tawdry femme fatale, the ambiguous morality. A number of film critics were quite positive (Variety, New York Times, Los Angeles Times), but others who praised it nevertheless discounted their ratings. A couple apparently just didn’t “get it.” That may account for a short in-theater run. See it and decide for yourself.

Rotten Tomatoes Critics’ Rating: 65%; Audiences: 84%

Watch it on Amazon Prime here.

The Dark Side of The Movies

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It’s week four in our six-week zoom course on neo-noir cinema, a tour through a half-dozen of the best/most interesting/groundbreaking films in this genre, and we’re leaving bloody footprints in our wake. Having to watch a movie for “homework” is the best! So, you may wonder, what distinguishes neo-noir from plain old noir?

A few things, but as in all classification schemes involving creative endeavors, the edges blur a bit. The original noir genre includes black and white films produced mostly in the 1940s and 1950s. They involved a femme fatale, some mystery or crime or double-dealing, a hard-to-impress detective trying to work it out, and a lonely, jazzy trumpet. In fact, the sound track alone could send shivers up your back. If that didn’t, the cynicism would. Often urban. The top 5, says Rotten Tomatoes? Laura, Shadow of a Doubt, The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, and Sunset Boulevard.

Neo-noir, then, is number one, more recent. These films are in living color, they often still involve a femme fatale, crime, a jaded detective/investigator, and some thematic music that may branch out a bit. The cynicism and double-dealing are still there, of course, and the violence is heightened.

So far we’ve seen The Conversation (1974), which was both more and less than I remembered. Gene Hackman is a professional eavesdropper who doesn’t like what he hears. You may mis-identify the femme fatale, and I could have done without the toilet that explodes in a bloodbath worthy of The Shining. I think that was a hallucination. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola with a fine, understated performance by John Cazale—reason enough to see it again. Not to mention a young Harrison Ford.

Next: Body Heat (1981).No question that Kathleen Turner is the femme fatale here or that the double-dealing involves her lover (William Hurt) and husband (Richard Crenna). Sexy stuff directed by Lawrence Kasdan.

The Coen Brothers first feature film, Blood Simple (1984) was next. Frances McDormand as the put-upon wife never realizes she’s a femme fatale, despite the body count evidence. The extent to which the characters misunderstand what’s going on has definite comic moments.

Last night we did our homework and watched L.A. Confidential (1997). It has it all, FF, crime, double-dealing, rampant cynicism, and appreciably more violence than the others. Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, and Guy Pearce are great as cops trying to figure out what side of the law they’re on. Directed by Curtis Hanson.

Two more to go!