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GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY (2022, USA)

Three years after the incredibly entertaining and masterfully designed parody of the classic whodunit, murder-mystery films “Knives Out”, Rian Johnson (Brick, Star Wars) brings us the new adventures of the world’s best private investigator, the eccentric Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, who is again good he also jokes about himself, that is, about his most famous role as the secret agent James Bond. “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” is again loaded with many famous faces and it is again an incredibly entertaining and masterfully designed and directed film, a dynamic crime comedy in which Johnson jokes about the lockdown during the covid pandemic, energy transitions, but also at the expense of arrogant Elon Musk tech-billionaires.

It is completely obvious that it was Elon Musk who was the inspiration for the character of Miles Bron (Edward Norton), a New York billionaire, owner of the technology company Alpha, who is planning to introduce an alternative fuel based on hydrogen, although it has not yet been fully tested. On this occasion, Bron decided to organize a murder-mystery party on his island in Greece, to which he invited all his closest friends and associates, and Mr. Blanc ended up there by chance. It takes place during the pandemic and quarantine, and its chief scientist Lionel Toussant (Leslie Odom), Connecticut governor Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), controversial fashion designer Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), YouTube influencer Duke Cody ( Dave Bautista), but also the co-founder of Alpha Cassandra Brand (Janelle Monae), with whom no one has been in contact for years since Bron pushed her out of the company.

And although the gathering on the island was intended as a game, it is clear that someone from the team that calls itself “The Disruptors” will end up dead, and the game will turn into a real murder investigation. And just as the name of the film suggests, like an onion, the layers will slowly unravel there and everything will lead to its center, which, we will understand, is crystal clear to Inspector Blanc from the very beginning. Of course, we can’t know that, but once again Johnson wonderfully wrapped up and then unwrapped a superb and incredibly entertaining film complex, which in the end can’t be criticized for not thinking well of all the details and branches of the story, character characterizations and their motivations.

In comparison to the great first part, “Glass Onion” is a shade weaker, but it is still a Hollywood blockbuster that I will always be happy to watch. At the same time, it is also an extraordinary social satire, which may be targeting the same target already this year in “Triangle of Sadness” by the Swedish Ruben Östlund and in “The Menu” by Mark Mylod, but again it is so well thought out and executed that the real pleasure is to watch. It is obvious that all these famous actors are having a lot of fun in this puzzle that unfolds fine and slowly and that, in all this teasing, at the same time perfectly shows what the world of the richest people looks like, who have completely lost touch with reality and do not trust anyone, not even those who were closest to them in some normal times.

Partly because it is no longer a friendship, but once a border is crossed, it will always have to turn into a kind of transactional relationship. And while these hyperrich people always look at the people around them as someone who wants and demands something from them, and partly they are not completely wrong, these others treat these rich people so submissively, flatteringly and hoping for some crumbs from the table. “Glass Onion” shows excellently that once someone gets hold of such insane and unnatural wealth, he is simply no longer capable of normal relationships with people, and the behavior of those closest to him whom he once trusted, now he sees as a threat and danger.

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