2.5 stars out of 5
I texted my buddy to see if he wanted to catch the 7:30 showing of Uncut Gems. He couldn’t, and my visit to the DMV in Jersey City went faster than expected, so I decided to see the 4:30 screening instead, freeing up my evening for a meatball parm sub and Jeopardy! I got to the theater with time to spare, even for the 10–12 minute prep time for pretzel bites.
As I patiently waited for those salty morsels, I glanced at my torn movie ticket, only to notice a time ending with a :15pm. I hurriedly opened the Bow•Tie Cinemas app, which confirmed my error: Uncut Gems began at 4:15 p.m. Here it was already 4:27, meaning previews had likely wrapped up, and my carby nuggets still weren’t ready. Miss the beginning? I hate to miss the beginning. I could practically hear Syd Field pooh-poohing the idea from beyond the grave.
I looked at the app again. Knives Out was starting at 4:30. I could procure my cheese-dipping-ready baked dough, miss a few previews, and still see the whole movie. The trailer hadn’t impressed me — seemed to be trying too hard — but reviews were apparently positive. I asked the guy at the ticket counter if it was OK to switch — I didn’t want to throw off the national box-office totals. “That’s in theater 4,” he said. I started to explain about the pretzel bites and he cut me off: “You’re good, bro.”
Oh yeah, the movie. I initially thought, “I’m really going to like this.” The mansion-plus-murder mood felt just right, with tongue firmly in cheek. When I was a little guy, there was a star-packed comedy, Murder by Death, that I was too young for. But finally, I was getting my whodunnit sendup!
Even the onscreen font was perfect: 1970s mystery paperback. Christopher Plummer ideally cast as the aging detective novelist. I laughed aloud — quite a bit more than the handful of others in this late-afternoon weekday screening — at the introduction of each character: Edi Patterson (Righteous Gemstones, Vice Principals) as the maid, Toni Collette as a hippie-dippy sort reminding me of a woman I saw exaggeratedly dancing at both Outpost in the Burbs and the Hoboken Arts & Music Festival, Don Johnson — how can you not enjoy late-era Don Johnson?, and reliable freak show Michael Shannon.
Not everyone is successful in their roles. Daniel Craig, as a P.I., has a Cajun-detective accent, but refuses to ham it up. Jamie Lee Curtis, as Plummer’s daughter, doesn’t appear to be enjoying herself. Riki Lindholme (Garfunkel in the Garfunkel & Oates comedy duo) gets very little to do, as does (doesn’t?) Jaeden Martell — the main boy in IT — whose alt-right character seems to have been almost entirely left on the cutting room floor. Chris Evans, looking like a young Alec Baldwin, does have a significant part, but doesn’t really show up until deep in the film, making me wonder if he wasn’t available for the early weeks of shooting.
But my main problem: As the plot starts piling up, getting more and more convoluted, the laughs started getting farther and farther apart. Now, maybe that’s what some people want from a whodunnit, but for me it was more of a whogivesashit.
Jack Silbert, curator