Knox Goes Away
In his second time as a director, Michael Keaton stars in the not-so-great “Knox Goes Away” as a thoughtful assassin with an uncommon and fast acting version of dementia. He is so sick that he is given only a few weeks to live once diagnosed. It’s a great idea by screenwriter Gregory Poirier, one that is built up slowly and quietly but loses any tension, moodiness, suspense or feeling it might have had because of some narrative headscratchers. Even Keaton can’t deliver on what the movie promises and he’s normally solid.
This should have been a complete character study. With multiple Ph.Ds in English and history who was also in the Gulf War, Knox is already an enigma that piques our interest. We get some sense of his day to day life every Thursday night he has an appointment with a call girl (Joanna Kulig) but it’s far less than we were led to expect from his background. And instead of allowing us to focus on Knox himself, the film shifts its attention to a subplot so trite it practically drags its belly. Knox hasn’t seen his estranged son Miles (James Marsden) in years; now Miles shows up at the front door bloody and beaten and breathless, he just killed the man who raped his daughter and needs dad’s help dad knows about these kinds of things covering it up.
The subplot serves as an all-too transparent through line for revisiting Knox’s past while facing his death except even that doesn’t work. There are fewer scenes between Marsden and Keaton than you’d think there’d be when they’re both on screen together, fewer chances to uncover more about this guy’s insides before they vanish altogether into misty plot turns. Keaton spends much of the film carrying out an elaborate plan of subterfuge that requires him to get the help of an old friend (a snoozy Al Pacino) so he can remember it. That would be a fine premise again, except the twist is obvious 45 minutes in. What’s left is a chilly character study not even curious about its main character and sunk by an all too foreseeable script.
There are still other flaws to find. Keaton further distracts attention from Knox by focusing on the two detectives who are after him. Suzy Nakamura plays the smarter, more observant one, and she’s actually kind of a welcome sight in this soft-boiled action flick because her character has some edges. But we learn more about her character’s backstory than we do about Knox’s particularly the immigrant pressures she faced from her overbearing parents as well as the casual sexism she encounters at work. Normally I’m down for some cultural texture; here it feels extraneous.
These great drawbacks and awkward mistakes wouldn’t be so bad if this film wasn’t so ugly. The flat photography and ungraceful cuts unravel the few moments where Keaton comes out of himself to take care of some goons. None of the shots are interestingly composed and none of them, through lighting or any sense of mise en scene, offer up any interesting information or memorable images or a feeling for the noir sensibilities it’s trying to get at with its woozy jazz score.
Really it all hangs on Keaton giving a workmanlike performance to save what can be saved, but he doesn’t even do that. For a character who is supposed to be losing himself, Keaton gives Knox too much control. It’s a calm lucidity that never rises to the level of what the character might feel like; in “Knox Goes Away,” one can’t help but feel that he was never really there.
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