All in Good Fun

KNIVES OUT (A-minus) - In some ways, this star-studded whodunnit is the ultimate entertainment one could expect at a cineplex. When reviewing his early film "Looper," we said of Rian Johnson that he "reminds me of Danny Boyle in his facility with storytelling and his elegance with visuals." We discovered him with "Brick," his 2005 debut, an offbeat high school crime mystery. Here, he emerges from a "Star Wars" stint with a call-back to Agatha Christie, the twisted tale of spoiled offspring of a wealthy mystery novelist bickering over their inheritance after his apparent suicide (or was it ... murder?!).

Even at a sweaty 130 minutes, Johnson rollicks around, pulling juicy performances from his enthusiastic players. Jamie Lee Curtis, once a screaming teen, is now matronly but still as playful as she was in "A Fish Called Wanda." Michael Shannon plays against type as a dweeby conniver. Chris Evans, a veteran of superhero movies, comes off as a young, glib Alec Baldwin. Toni Collette offers a silly airhead. Lakeith Stanfield does exasperation well as a detective overshadowed by an old-school private eye played by Daniel Craig, with an exaggerated Dixie drawl.

They all orbit around Ana de Armas as Marta, the nurse of the patriarch (Christopher Plummer), whose roots from South or Central America provide a running gag among the Waspy descendants who couldn't have been bothered over the years with actually getting to know her. She anchors the film while the others dance playfully around her. The jokes land with just the right balance of familiarity and zing.

Family dynamics drive the narrative. The twists and turns are worthy of a gifted mystery writer. Even if you figure it all out fairly early, it's a joyride tailing Johnson as he bops around toward the finish line. Johnson tries to both subvert and pay homage to classic mystery romps, a vintage that has been scarce since the '70s and "Wanda," which by the '80s had seemed almost quaint.

BONUS TRACK
The Rolling Stones appear over the closing credits with a deep cut from "Exile on Main Street," "Sweet Virginia":