Michael Keaton’s noir thriller, Knox Goes Away, offers the veteran actor considered one of his greatest roles as a dementia-afflicted hitman.
PLOT: A hitman, Knox (Michael Keaton), discovers he has a fast-acting type of dementia and solely has weeks of lucidity left. Shortly after this analysis, in a second of confusion, he botches successful, killing each his companion and a civilian. As if that weren’t dangerous sufficient, his estranged son (James Marsden) exhibits up on his doorstep needing assist masking up a homicide.
REVIEW: Knox Goes Away has a premise that’s changing into more and more widespread: an ageing killer develops dementia and should put issues proper whereas he can. Liam Neeson performed a equally stricken killer in Reminiscence final 12 months (itself a remake), and Nicolas Cage performed one other character like this in The Dying of the Gentle. Neither of these movies was nice as a result of they centered on every little thing however the protagonist’s situation. Knox Goes Away is completely different. Michael Keaton, who additionally directs (from a script by Gregory Poirier), focuses on Knox and his ever-diminishing colleges. Knox is aware of he solely has a bit time left the place he’s nonetheless the person everybody thinks he’s, and the movie follows him as he places to work a determined plan to avoid wasting his son.
Keaton might have performed Knox as aloof and chilly, however maybe sensing this can be a cliche, the character is as a substitute proven to be urbane and complicated. He will get alongside nicely together with his killer companion (a terrific Ray Mckinnon) and is so valued by his former handler (Al Pacino) that when he loses focus, he has folks to depend on whom he is aware of gained’t cross him.
Whereas the film could go a bit overboard in establishing Knox’s killer bonafides (he’s a Gulf Warfare Vet with not one however two PhDs), Keaton’s so charismatic a star that all of it works. There’s in all probability an motion film model of Knox Goes Away that would have been made, however I favor the moody drama that Keaton crafted. He’s supported by a slick forged, which incorporates an engaged Al Pacino, who works in sufficient quirks (similar to consuming Chinese language meals in his bathtub) to maintain what might have been a inventory character attention-grabbing. Keaton does this with just about the entire forged, in that the folks chosen are much less apparent however impressed selections, similar to Chilly Warfare’s Joanna Kulig as a prostitute Knox sees each week and Suzy Nakamura because the acid-tongued cop investigating the murders Knox is linked to.
In the meantime, James Marsden performs Knox’s estranged son in an uncharacteristically intense function. He’s all the time been extremely likable. We’re on his facet even earlier than we discover out that the man he killed is a white supremacist pedophile (in a darkly humorous second, Knox jokes that if his son had already buried the physique, he would have dug him up simply to kill him once more). You get that Knox has an prolonged household value defending, and versus a Liam Neeson film the place the hero would use brute drive, Knox makes use of crafty and intelligence.
By means of all of it, Keaton retains the pacing tight, by no means going overboard with the tips he makes use of to depict Knox’s failing reminiscence. As that is an actor’s showcase, he doesn’t must current the star on the high of his recreation (much like the latest Dopesick). Whereas a extra action-driven film may need made it a better promote commercially, Keaton’s made an clever, tough-guy noir that will make the style icons proud.
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