That’s an interesting point–but I’m not sure it jibes with Martha’s personality.
She’s spent her life a true believer in this church, and she sees everything through the lens of “is it good for this church or bad for this church?” and also the lens of “fuck all yall fuckers who are bad for this church I will hold a fucking grudge forever.” Her character is built on viciousness to her foes. I don’t see her looking for a way to keep an innocent man out of prison. Jud is bad for the church in her eyes, and she is terrible to him.
As for the resurrection vid making a murder charge impossible? You’re 100% right, but I’m not sure Martha will see it that way. She’s brilliant at twisty murder plots, but has a huge blind spot for religion. It’s more plausible to me that she thinks the cops will believe in a resurrection of a murdered man, and still charge the murderer, than that she wants them to conclude Wicks is a fraud in Mexico.
I can’t believe they didn’t just shoot that scene with no names — which could’ve simply kept open the possibility you mentioned, and also kept open the possibility that Blanc was playing not with Angela Lansbury but with Jessica Fletcher.
Not to sidetrack but one thing that has made me really distrustful of The Boys was that if you just saw how that show was promoted and presented–yeah you’d think Homelander was the hero. I get it. The fascys have next to no cultural literacy but the Amazon media machine isn’t helping. It also seems like the show forgets Homelander is supposed to be effin’ terrible for some spells.
I watched this last night. I really enjoyed it. I think it’s the weakest of the three, but it was still really good.
The priest was the best thing about the movie. No, the moral development of a Catholic priest isn’t what i expected from the knives out franchise, but i thought they did it really well, and any actor was super.
I’m not sure i believe the murder. Such a convoluted plot. So many participants. Why was there a giant tub of acid in the doctor’s basement? But it was fun, and held together well enough to enjoy the movie.
I don’t think it just happened to be there, I think he had it, specifically, to dissolve Wick’s body. That was the original plan. I don’t remember the details, but Nat (the vet) and Martha were going to kill and dissolve Samson when he left the crypt.
And, as I’m thinking about the movie again, I wonder if they purposely set this whole thing up to repeat at some point in the future. To be clear, I’m not saying they’re going to make another movie about it, just that the movie ends a bit like it starts. A fortune, hidden on Church property somewhere, with only a handful of people even aware that it exists. The way they ended it, it wouldn’t be unexpected for Cy to show up some day looking for it. Either via legal means or trashing the place like Grace.
However, if they were going for that, I think they should’ve had Jud make some type of reference to it, similar to the way Wicks talked about ‘Eve’s Apple’.
We finally watched it last night. I have to say it was my least favorite of the three. I think it lacked a lot of the humorous undertones of the others. It was there, but not as much. I agree with other posters, it was a bit too obvious. I thought the acting was great. Glass Onion is still my favorite of the three.
Just saw it; haven’t gone completely through previous discussion yet.
I very much disagree, considering how much of the emotional plot was driven by the direct contrast between the believer priest and atheist detective. In the end, Blanc had to be the one to solve the mystery, because it IS his game and not the priest’s.
I note that the murder plot owed a lot to a Carr book NOT named in the movie (spoilers for the sake of the book, not the film): The Red Widow Murders, in which the killer, a doctor, took advantage of being able to fiddle with the corpse unquestioned to facilitate the killing. Though as I correctly predicted above, the trick of the first person to touch the corpse actually doing the killing right then is a classic, although in this case it was the second, which was deliberate to hide that fact.
Finally saw it. It strikes me as stylistically different from the first two, which were glitzier productions, especially Glass Onion, still my favourite. But once it gets rolling it tells a good story, and there is some fine acting by Josh O’Connor and Josh Brolin as the two priests, and by Daniel Craig and Glenn Close. Craig is really pulling in big bucks, reportedly around $100 million for just the first two movies. Close is really getting on in years – at first I didn’t even recognize her.
Will we see another one in the franchise? Not for a while, but both writer-director Rian Johnson and Craig say they’re having fun with it and are keen to do another one. So far it’s just at the stage of Johnson tossing around ideas, and nothing has been greenlit.
She looks older in the movie than in other recent photos. I assume that’s partly makeup.
I thought she was really good in it, and was also happy to see a “sexy actress” playing an important “old lady” role. But of course, Josh O’Connor was the real star.
Maybe. I’m not sure how old the Martha character in the movie was supposed to be. At one point she confesses to having held the secret about the jewel “for 50 years”. But in flashbacks, we see that she knew about it when she was what looked to be no more than 11 or 12. So should Martha be presumed to be in her early 60s? IRL, Glenn Close is 78. But who knows what they may have done with makeup – movie producers like taking liberties for the sake of dramatic effect that don’t necessarily make logical sense.
I should add – not included in my earlier post – that I would rate this movie as “highly recommended”, even if not the best of the three, and I’m looking forward to more of them.
The real question is, why didn’t they already have Wick’s body dissolved and disposed of before resurrection day? Or, for that matter, why dissolve it at all? Just bury it somewhere. Especially since the acid bath still leaves the skeleton in tact.
Anyway, I thought this was just “meh” and thought the “good” priest, Judd, was too dimwitted. I was like “Ok, in what conceivable way is he not able to piece together that whoever knocked him out—whether the “bad” priest feigning death for “reasons” or someone else—is the one who killed Samson and then placed Judd so he’d be discovered with his fingerprints on the weapon?”
The protagonist doesn’t need to solve the case on their own, obviously, but they need to be at least capable of drawing basic inferences on their own.
Before, after, dissolved, burried etc, it shouldn’t have mattered how or when they disposed of Wicks’ body. The problem was that Nat went rogue, killed Samson and framed Jud. That’s what eventually led Martha, Jud, Blanc etc to his house.
IOW, the only reason they were caught with Wicks body was because the plan went sideways.
But, yes, I agree, it would’ve made more sense, at least IRL, to dispose of the body some other than in his basement.
Cinematics? They probably could’ve set the scene up a dozen different ways. Martha just wanted to frame the newly resurrected Wicks for Nat’s death and get the diamond.
But one of the chief reasons for disposing of the body at all (to get rid of the evidence) is also a motivating reason to dispose of the body as soon as possible: to get rid of the evidence as soon as possible.
“Well, let me see, I am an accessory before the fact to murder and there is an active criminal investigation centered around me and half a dozen other regulars at my church, but just for kicks I’m going to let the victim’s body, which is supposed to be entombed, sit in my basement for a couple extra days to… take funny pictures with it? Do a weekend at Bernie’s fan fic?”
Hmm, I think they needed Wicks’ actual body in the casket for the funeral viewing or whatever. Then a quick swap with the drugged and made-up Samson, and the actual corpse was borne to the tomb in the false bottom of the coffin (which I think we caught a glimpse of in a recon scene).
Not a great idea to disappear your genuine cadaver before interment, in case some awkwardness crops up with the authorities: you need to be prepared to show that the deceased is really most sincerely dead.
And then, of course, you’re pretty much stuck with leaving it there till the big resurrection scene. Mind you, I don’t say you can’t pick a lot of holes in this setup, just that it’s superficially plausible in the viewing moment.
And I rather liked that Jud was clearly not the best thinker or shrewd about consequences (besides being traumatized sleep-deprived etc. etc.). It made it more meaningful that he still could cling to what he thought was right even without understanding the situation. And that Blanc was able to appreciate Jud’s kindliness and commitment to his vocation even though he usually doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
Also, I think Jud’s supposed to be quite young. He has to be at least 25 to have been ordained, and the actor who plays him is 35, but I think he read as about 28 at most.
Furthermore, recall that he was thinking he might have witnessed an actual miracle of resurrection, so prepared to accept that weird shit can happen. And that boxers are familiar with the phenomenon of a concussed fighter being able to go on fighting but not remember it afterwards. I don’t think it’s ridiculous that Jud is afraid he might have actually killed Samson even though he has no awareness of it.