KNOX GOES AWAY - Mark Reviews Movies

Knox Goes Away, Saban Films

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | March 14, 2024

Basically the story of a career criminal with one last job to do, Knox Goes Away throws a couple of potentially clever obstacles or intriguing complications into that mix. For one thing, our criminal is no master thief but a professional killer, a man who has ended so many lives that he probably couldn't number them for certain, even if he kept count. He doesn't. In fact, John Knox (Michael Keaton) doesn't even want to know what his targets have done to make them his targets. Such things don't matter to the guy.

That final job is a personal matter, too, as the killer's estranged son returns after a couple decades of not seeing or talking to his old man. He's in the kind of trouble, though, that requires someone with his father's specific brand of knowledge and experience, so out of that desperation comes an unlikely reunion.

The real hook here, though, is that John has an advanced form of dementia, which means he likely will forget everything about himself, his life, and other essential things in a matter of weeks. The clock is ticking for John's final plan, which will determine whether or not he and/or son are found to be murderers by the law. However, it's also ticking for the professional killer's ability to remember what that plan is, how it's supposed to be enacted, and why he's even doing it in the first place.

This is a clever setup on the part of screenwriter Gregory Poirier, or it would be, at least, if the movie itself had operated under the previously mentioned parameters. As a thriller, the movie, directed by Keaton, doesn't function, because it intentionally keeps far too much information from us. It's tough enough to care about whether a cold, heartless murderer will get away with an elaborate scheme that possibly covers up multiple killings, but it's even more difficult to find suspense in a plan's success or failure when the particulars of the plan itself are withheld from us.

That mainly leaves us with Knox himself as the central point of interest for this story—the one element that's consistently present and plainly developed. There's definitely something to the to-the-point chilliness Keaton brings to the character when he's in professional mode, as well as the flashes of vulnerability the actor portrays when Knox has a moment of forgetfulness. We might actually find some reason to connect with or understand this character under more considered circumstances and with even a little more attention to what makes him tick.

Instead, Poirier's script is all about plotting, with Knox receiving word of his next assignment from business partner Muncie (Ray McKinnon), learning about his neurodegenerative condition from an out-of-town doctor, and having an episode in the middle of the hit, leading to more than one death. Knox tries to cover his tracks, but it's only a matter of time before a pair of detectives (played by Suzy Nakamura and John Hoogenakker) start asking questions and looking in Knox's direction.

Shortly after, the killer's son Miles (James Marsden) shows up at his door one night, covered in blood and pleading for his assassin father's help. Miles has killed the man who groomed and impregnated his teenage daughter, and he has no clue how to remove traces of the murder from himself and of himself from the crime scene.

Apparently, Knox comes up with a plan to tie up the loose ends of both crime scenes, while presumably keeping suspicion from himself and/or his son. The specifics of that scheme are known only to Knox and a thief acquaintance named Xavier (Al Pacino), who hears the plan and tells his pal that every detail and each piece of timing of it have to executed perfectly. That last part is all we know, meaning we're never sure if Knox, whose memory is lapsing more and more with each week that passes in the narrative, is actually fulfilling the requirements of his strategy or messing it up royally.

Where's the tension in that? It's not present here, for sure, because the filmmakers are more concerned about surprise than suspense, while being less interested in matters of character than either of those elements. Knox Goes Away may feature some decent performances from Keaton, Marsden, and Marcia Gay Harden as the killer's ex-wife, but apart from some minor details, we really learn nothing about these people that doesn't relate to their function in the plot. Without a convincing human or narrative entryway into this game, it's all just bland and routine.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products