Pulled back from retirement for one last job, contract killer John Knox (Michael Keaton), begrudgingly agrees to join his partner Muncie (Ray McKinnon) on the hit.  Things go terribly awry leaving Knox with a real mess to clean up at the crime scene.  When he returns home, he is met by his estranged son Miles (James Marsden) who is covered in blood.  Miles explains that he just got back from the house of his pregnant teenage daughter’s much older boyfriend, killing the man, and now needs help cleaning the crime scene.  Time is of the essence, though, as Knox has been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, a fast-moving form of dementia, a fate he has kept secret from his family. 

Michael Keaton’s second directorial feature, Knox Goes Away, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival ahead of its theatrical release by Saban Films.  Running 114 minutes, the crime thriller topples through many twists and turns leaving its wide cast and its audience always surprised by what comes next.  Written by Gregory Poirier, there is ample opportunity to get a little weird given the dementia angle, but Marshall Adams shoots everything head-on without many tricks up his sleeve, and Jessica Hernández, in turn, edits with a similarly matter-of-fact precision that makes for a taught and enjoyable film. 

Keaton has been keeping busy, but many of the roles in the late era of his career are more cashing in on his name in a bit of stunt casting so few of these projects really allow him a chance to stretch out and have fun in a new, original role.  We do not get to see Knox in his prime so we must take his pedigree at face value from what we are told, but what we do see does seem to prove that he is a highly capable hired gun, and the film does allow for some action and fight sequences to play out with some surprising intensity.  Much like Liam Neeson and Denzel Washington, Keaton is not letting age get in the way of delivering an adrenaline-fueled performance, but unlike those two contemporaries who come quickest to mind, Knox Goes Away is missing some of the pizzaz and spark found in the libraries of others.  To be fair, Keaton is presenting a very different kind of character from Bryan Mills and Robert McCall, but Knox’s story is grounded almost to a fault because it does not have an exciting visual hook; an every-man mercenary living in a furniture showroom. 

The film does try to create a bit of a freewheeling and wild tone through Knox’s boss, Xavier Crane (Al Pacino) but even he is operating on a much tamer level than has been seen in some of his more recent – or past, for that matter – roles. His gaudy opulence certainty does add some life and color to the film that is otherwise mostly suburban whites and cream, and while Xavier is not fleshed out enough to be called a truly meditative part on behalf of the octogenarian, it is always nice to see how Pacino can still draw all eyes on him without having to rely on heavy antics. 

What does bring some real life and fun into the feature is Detective Emily Ikari (Suzy Nakamura) as she is convinced of Knox’s involvement in the murders but struggles to prove it with something admissible in court. We do not split enough time with the police department to consider Knox Goes Away a cat-and-mouse film, but the scenes where they do intersect are some of the more electric moments in the film. Nakamura delivers a great performance, and one of the more incredible things about the script is that as she gets closer and closer to nailing these murders on Knox, we do not end up seeing her as the villain of the story for going after our morally corrupt protagonist; yet we also want to see Knox get away with it because of the time spent with him and all the additional knowledge we have regarding the case which Emily can only speculate about.

Nakamura is also stepping into the role which, especially lately, has been really tough to pull off as the opposing force of our complicated protagonist, but is also asked to inject humor and levity into the film. Awkwafina in Renfield (2023) is an extreme example of this, but more recently and more closely related by genre is Emmy Raver-Lampman in The Beekeeper (2024). In both cases, these actresses were let down by their screenwriters as their roles did not contain too much of an arc across the film. Rather, they were plugged into the scene to be either funny or threatening or bumbling; whichever was seen fit for the moment only to change on a dime the next. Poirier avoids this by, admittedly, giving Nakamura less screen time than those two contemporaries, but he is much more careful to make sure her scenes build off of each other so that we get a fully formed character and growth as she continues unraveling Knox’s tangled up web and affairs. 

Knox Goes Away is a far more complicated film than the initial premise, or even the opening act truly presents, which is what makes it such a fun film to engage with. It is not quite a mystery so the more Sherlockian-inclined in the audience may find it a bit slight, but there are still plenty of threads to keep straight and it is a very lean edit. As with most films in the genre, it is best not to try and get ahead of them but rather catalog the information as it is presented so that you are not waiting for the film to catch up to you and this is no different. It plays out like a solid programmer, and while there may not be new clues or layers to uncover upon repeat viewings, the performances are committed and Keaton proves to have a steady hand on the wheel that even knowing how the events of the film will shake out, Knox Goes Away will still present audiences with plenty to be enjoyed be it their first or subsequent viewing.