Knox Goes Away (2023)

March 23, 2024 6:11 PM

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

Directed by Michael Keaton; stars Keaton, James Marsden, Marcia Gay Harden, and Al Pacino, who dials his Pacinocity back so far that at first I thought it was Marc Maron.

Wikipedia article on Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.

posted by Halloween Jack (2 comments total)

The film is at 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, and... it's much better than that. The closest thing that it reminded me of was an old movie titled Safe House, starring Patrick Stewart, about a former government agent with Alzheimer's, although it's not that much similar, really. Everyone's great in this: Keaton, Marsden (this might be my favorite performance of his that I've seen), Pacino, and Suzy Nakamura as the police detective who's starting to connect the two murder scenes that are at the heart of the plot. I'm not sure why more critics didn't like it, although I've been less and less impressed with what's passed for film criticism in recent years.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:30 AM on March 24 [3 favorites]

OMG, watching it right now, Safe House (1998) is... deeply devastating. But, hilariously so? Peak 90s. Sir Pat Stu is something special, as usual.
posted by porpoise at 9:54 PM on March 24 [2 favorites]