Michael Keaton directs himself in Knox is leaving (now streaming on Max), about a hitman whose memories are fading due to a degenerative brain disease. It’s Keaton’s second time behind the camera (he also played a hitman in the first, from 2008). The Merry Knight; interpret that as you will), and features a solid supporting cast that includes James Marsden, Al Pacino, and Marcia Gay Harden. The film proves fully capable of telling a noir-tinged story with some skill and emotion, and is anything but forgettable.
KNOX IS LEAVINGSTREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: “It’s okay, Doctor. Even if I hated you for telling me, I’d forget it soon enough.” It’s Knox (Keaton) speaking. He’s just been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rapidly progressing form of dementia. He’s got a few more weeks of lucidity left. That means it’s time for him to get his affairs in order, after finishing one last job. He and his partner Muncie (Ray McKinnon) break into a scoundrel’s apartment, and Knox puts one in the target, one in his girlfriend, and one in Muncie. That last one wasn’t supposed to happen. He got confused. It’s lasted this He’s gone a long time without being caught (he’s a cunning, shrewd hitman with PhDs and a past working in military reconnaissance behind enemy lines), so it must be his brain rebelling against him. He organizes the bodies and weapons as best he can and leaves. He’s not entirely foolproof, but he might buy himself some time.
Things always come in threes, don’t they? We have his diagnosis and his screw-up, and suddenly there’s a knock on his door. His long-estranged son Miles (James Marsden) is hyperventilating and covered in blood. “I killed someone,” Miles gasps. “Did he deserve to be killed?” Knox retorts. That’s debatable — the guy was a 32-year-old pervert who impregnated the 16-year-old granddaughter Knox has never met. Luckily for Miles, his dad is an expert at dealing with these kinds of situations. He tells Miles to take it easy, then shows up at the crime scene and gets to work.
Thirty-seven minutes into the film, we see Al Pacino. He plays Xavier, Knox’s boss and closest confidant. Knox has written a plan to fix Miles’ situation and shares it with Xavier, who will help him. Check on him. Make sure Knox disables the password on his phone so he doesn’t forget it and then can’t use it. See if each step of Knox’s plan is going as planned. Meanwhile, Detective Ikari (Suzy Nakamura) snoops around Knox’s crime scene. and Miles snoops around the crime scene, because Los Angeles is a very small town and there’s only one homicide detective on the force. There’s a subplot involving Annie (Joanna Kulig), Knox’s Thursday companion; he also visits his ex (Marcia Gay Harden) to let her know he’s “leaving,” which stirs up all sorts of complex feelings. Now, I don’t know if there’s any doubt about Knox successfully sorting everything out before he loses his mind; it seems inevitable. It could be the simple matter of as he does.
What movies will it remind you of? Memory (2022) had a very similar premise: Liam Neeson playing a hitman with Alzheimer’s.
Performance worth watching: It almost goes without saying that Keaton is excellent at this: he’s a seasoned pro who’s still willing to take on challenging roles like this late in his career.
Memorable dialogue: Xavier comforts Knox after sharing the news of his diagnosis: “Jesus Knox, I can’t think of anything worse except maybe your penis stopping working.”
Sex and skin: None.
Our opinion: I recently saw Sleeping dogsin which Russell Crowe plays a retired cop battling Alzheimer’s to solve an old case; that exploitative effort crudely used the disease as a plot device. Knox is leaving It handles memory loss in a more sensitive way: Cruetzfeldt-Jakob is a harsh reality that the character has to deal with, which motivates some significant character exploration on Keaton’s part. Sure, the disease is essentially a silent countdown to Knox’s total mental incapacitation, so it’s a device to amp up dramatic tension. But that’s secondary to Keaton’s efforts; grant Knox enough introspection, and you’ll start to wonder if the guy deserves a redemptive arc.
The tortured morality at the heart of the film makes it both thorny and fascinating. As decent, upright human beings, we want to hope for the best for Knox. But should we? Keaton underscores the drama with subtle bits of dark comedy, which draw us away from the feelings of the film. also Bad for a professional sociopath-killer who always justified his work by insisting that everyone he killed was a bad person; he’s smart, but maybe not smart enough to recognize the irony of his own redemptive arc when he took away similar opportunities from many other people. But hey, at least he’s haunted by the two innocents he accidentally killed.
This is complicated by another irony: the apple may not fall too far from the tree. Miles deliberately distanced himself from Knox after learning of his father’s unsavory profession; now Miles needs Knox’s expertise to get him out of a sticky situation — a sticky situation that raises some plausibility issues, but never distracts from the entertainment value of the convoluted plot. More to the point, didn’t that statutory rapist (who, you might have noticed, is covered in white supremacist tattoos) do it? deserve Kill? Goodness, I can’t answer that. As decent, upright human beings, we should believe in rehabilitation, and now Miles might need a little of that himself, having taken on the role of judge, jury, and executioner in a fit of rage that may be justified, right up to the point where he stabs the guy, of course. It’s this kind of ethical darkness and cynicism that defines Knox is leaving like a fascinating and tension-filled noir.
Our calling: WATCH IT STREAMING. Keaton is 73 and still working hard. You can’t help but admire him.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
