Text/Stern
(The author is Yunzi, special commentator of Litchi News, film critic, executive producer, director of Jiangsu Film and Television Critics Society; this article is an exclusive manuscript of Litchi News mobile phone client and Litchi Network, please indicate the source when reprinting.) ）
The star-studded Hollywood suspense movie "Sharp Blade Out of the Sheath" is easily reminiscent of the many classic novels of "Queen of Reasoning" Agatha Christie, but director Ryan Johnson tries to eliminate the clichéd ambitions, and it is clear from the first scene of the film - the maid with the tray finds the rich master Harlan who has cut his throat and died at the moment of opening the door, and when you subconsciously wait for the tray to land on the ground, the maid actually holds the tray in a panic!
At this moment, we seem to have a hunch that Blade Out of the Sheath will not play cards according to common sense.
The story of "Blade Out of the Sheath" is the same as that of reasoning films such as "Gosford Manor" and "Eight Beautiful Figures", and a rich man named Harlan died tragically on his 85th birthday. When his death was ruled a suicide, Braun, a private investigator with a thick Southern accent, arrived at the vast family that was tidal in the dark— a murder he suspected was an elaborate murder that had been suspected for both generations. In the first half hour of the film, we will habitually think that Braun will be designed as a 21st-century detective Poirot, through the search for clues to uncover the dark side of the family, perhaps also into some of the "naughty" tricks of the temple-level mystery writer Quinn, bringing the audience an unexpected soul attack, but the truth is still unexpected.
The suspenseful effect created by the director in this film shows a superb skill in perfectly balancing truth and illusion. While maintaining the style of the old-school intrinsic reasoning work, the film adds a larger and more sophisticated plot rivet to avoid all kinds of troubles accumulated in the narrative process - before we guess that something is about to happen, the members of this family are constantly accusing each other, the clues are constantly extending, and our attention is of course shifting. The film not only has a single contradiction point in the outbreak, but multiple points are detonated by the trend, and a large amount of necessary information has woven a winding plot network.
From the logical point of view, "Blade Out of the Sheath" and the famous plate game "Magic Quest" are slightly similar, but a picture from the 80s TV series "Female Writers and Murders" implies that when the mystery writer intersects with real-life murders, the story will inevitably have a richer dimension - the dead Harun is not a prop, otherwise the role would not have to invite Oscar winner Christopher Plummer to play. The interesting thing about the script is that it does not export Harlan as a negative image, and the relationship with the female nurse is even touching, but in fact, this god-like patriarch is the source of iniquity. Everyone in the family seems to be full of the shamelessness and selfishness of high society, but it is difficult to hate them. From this point of view, Braun's rant at the end is not convincing enough, and the dramatic effect is slightly reluctant.
Blade Out of the Sheath is designed with overwhelming dialogue, but it's not a reasoning farce that deliberately creates barriers to understanding, but a darker, more compact comedy. The film is full of elements of extortion, improper business dealings and drug abuse, and even cleverly satirizes the reality of current North American society, and the addition of this contemporary consciousness is also one of the reasons why the film's reputation in Hollywood has exploded. Works highlighting white identity anxieties and elite hypocrisy are everywhere, but Blade Out of the Sheath is different in that Marta, a caregiver at the center of the storm, is the descendant of a stowaway. When Harlan's youngest son, Walter, warns her that he can use family resources to settle his mother's legal status as an immigrant, Marta, who inherited Harlan's legacy, gives a witty response of "sharp blade out of the sheath", which is simple and absurd, but it just reinforces the special meaning of the film in the present.
It was a very wealthy family, and all the people in the Harlan family looked both indulgent and tacky, and the exquisite carpets and ornate everything said that the building was complex inside and out. A large group of acting stars, including Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans and other acting stars, contributed extremely skilled acting skills, making the film produce a seemingly impeccable dramatic effect.
However, starting from the character's own personality, the actual volume of the script still has no way to carry such a bursting performance energy. The tug-of-war between the family members and the female caregiver, the motive of Lord Harlan to change the will, the relationship between the eldest daughter and the father, etc., did not show a more extreme arrangement, so that when the truth came, the behavior of the family members lacked richness and wasted spectacular foreshadowing.
Globally, detective mystery novels remain popular in bookstores and libraries, but Hollywood avoids them. Blade Out of the Sheath largely accomplishes a challenge — it's a creative reinvention of a long-outdated, but actually cool genre. The most interesting part of the film is the freshness it brings to people, and it almost eliminates the barrier between art films and entertainment films in terms of creative methods.
Ryan Johnson's last film, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, was scolded to death, but he still knows how to please audiences with his deep attention to detail, which is why Blade Out of the Sheath, one of the highest quality Hollywood films of the year.