Knox Goes Away

The thing to know is that it's a downer of a movie, lifted by a great performance by Keaton. There are two key plot lines: a noir thriller, and a story about losing yourself to dementia.

The thriller, not necessarily hard to figure out, has non traditional twists that make it interesting. The personal story is more intriguing: Knox (Keaton) knows he's "going away" and is desperately trying to put things in order before his mind completely betrays him. There were times where i was reminded of Memento, but this film delves more deeply into the primary character's past.

Keaton is excellent, Marsden does well enough playing a conflicted son who has his own personal problems to contend with. Marcia Gay Harden is capable in a small role, and Pacino with very little screen time, pulls off his brand of sentimental bad guy.

Recommended.

When a contract killer has a rapidly evolving form of dementia, he is offered an opportunity to redeem himself by saving the life of his estranged adult son.

His character (John Knox) has to learn to accept that his life is going to be shortened by a disease, but as his estranged son comes to him out of the blue he sees an opportunity to see right by his ex wife and son and redeem himself for the life he has led. It must be said that Keaton grabs attention in his first scenes. His acting is purely on point and he clearly has seasoned over many years.

It's quite slow paced but not to the extent that you get impatient. It's more like being given time to savour what's going on. There's no massively intrusive score to ruin the scenes either which is very welcome.

The plot has a great twist but not one that seems contrived or just there to shock. It's part of a long drawn out plan of Knox's and although it's not hard to work it out early on, it still impresses with it's simplistic but effective machinations.

There is genuine tension at times and yet you can't help think that Knox is playing this all with a dark sense of humour. It's still very poignant though that in order to redeem his past, he has to accept that he has no future. He does this gracefully and willingly and I forgave him his every sin.

A solid 7 from me for a great thriller/murder/mystery.

Just watched "Knox Goes Away" on Max directed and starring Michael Keaton. Keaton plays Knox, a hitman who receives a devasting diagnosis: he has Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and has only weeks to live. So, he has to get his affairs in order before he "goes away". Soon multiple tragedies occur which require him to use the last vestiges of his intellect to ensure that his estranged son, ex-wife and his kept woman get their inheritance. The story is a bit slower than it needs to be but Keaton's descent into the "brain fog" of dementia is convincingly sad. Solid support from Al Pacino as Keaton's friend and James Marsden as Keaton's son combine to create a decent, if not perfect movie. Recommended as a 7/10 - a Roger Ebert reviewer gave this one star - completely unfair in my opinion.

Michael Keaton is like on a comeback streak. I think. He is not participating on several movies each year, as Bruce Willis did, at last two decades, but the pattern of coming back and especially into good and large projects, demonstrates that this iconic actor is returning to the main stage, and not once or twice.

This time he is also directing. At the second time of his long career. What a miss that he only did it twice, but maybe after this time he will do it again. For this movie, probably not knowing too much will serve the viewers better. It is a film that the less you know, the bigger surprise will be once you start watching it.

We had our share of movies about dementia. We've got heart breaking drama movies and even the biggest of all, Christopher Nolan's "Memento". Well...Keaton is no Nolan, but they both have a heavy batman connection, so it might help. This time it is Memento style, but with another Twist regarding how and when the dementia starts and when is it taking the part at main character's life.

It is not a brilliant and extraordinary story. But it is captivating. The story drops some details, that could have been relevant and add to the plot's twists, but it has enough going on to justify the runtime and the interest, from the viewers side. You cannot stop, once it has started and this is the true magic of the movie.

Keaton pulls a few wild cards for this feature - James Marsden, Marcia Gay Harden and even the wrinkly Al Pacino. They are all side characters, that are fun to watch, though no one is actually outstands Keaton's characters. He also took the great polish actress - Joanna Kulig for a short ride and she is a great add-on to this film.

It is now an outstanding and brilliant movie, but it is so well written and performed, that you cannot even go to take a leak while watching it. I cannot even say that it felt longer than it should have been and this is one of the surprising movies that I wasn't expecting anything and got almost everything.

Michael Keaton has demonstrated remarkable visualization in his debut as actor-director. While most actor-directors show competence, Michael Keaton created genuine visual artistry. Although one success does not establish excellence of talent, Keaton appears to have a promising future as a director. Knox Goes Away is on par with actor-director works by Clint Eastwood, Ben Affleck, Kenneth Branagh, Richard Attenborough, Greta Gerwig, etc....

The trend toward actor-producers has been quite beneficial to the quality of product in the industry -- to maintain artistic integrity rather than completely pandering to business profit. It also invites appearances by upper echelon performers, who otherwise would decline working on a particular project. Here, the example is Al Pachino. And the result is analogous to "form follows function."