TIFF 2023: Knox Goes Away Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

The trend of actor-directed films at this year’s festival continues with Knox Goes Away. One of the most reliable actors working today, not many may know that Michael Keaton is also a director, directing The Merry Gentleman back in 2008. This new film sees him step back into the director’s chair, as well as in front of the camera for just the second time. Perhaps it was meant to be as his solid work behind the camera is assisted by his even better work in front of it. Taking the crime thriller genre in a different direction, the film is still rather ordinary but the difference is Keaton’s lead performance. While its premise was ripe for more than what it ended up offering, he held it together and kept it compelling to watch. Delivering plenty of twists and turns, it does a decent job at keeping audiences on the edge of their seats as its premise allows the story to be told from a perspective that creates opportunities to do so. However, the film doesn’t tap into that as much as it should have, instead choosing to play it rather straightforward.

Knox Goes Away follows a contract assassin named John Knox (Keaton) whose life is suddenly turned upside down once he is diagnosed with a fast-moving form of dementia. As a result, he is forced to make amends as he looked to unsettle any unfinished business, including that with his estranged son Miles (Marsden), before it was too late. With a built-in tension right there, Knox slowly lost his wits about himself as the walls came closing in. The uncertainty of his devolving condition coupled with plenty of outside factors, he was still fun to watch as he navigated through his circles and went about using what was left of his special set of skills to save Miles who found himself in trouble. Despite the risk it would post to Knox, he leveraged anyone and anything he still had left but in doing so, he became increasingly vulnerable as the police were circling. In the end, it was merely a matter of whether he could get away with it or if he would officially fall apart first. That being said, things weren’t always what they seemed as somewhere within Knox was a plan. Where the film fails is its attempt to bring everything together by the end.  

As mentioned, the best part of Knox Goes Away is Keaton’s performance as the titular assassin. Bringing in consistently reliable charm and charisma, he fits the role just right while his subsequent decline saw him get to show off his range. Though the writing did not go far enough to deliver on the story’s big selling point, he made it work. Meanwhile, Keaton and Marsden, as Miles, had some chemistry together in the few scenes they shared together, the latter felt somewhat miscast. Pacino was delightful as Knox’s criminal friend.

Overall, Knox Goes Away brings something different to the table and succeeds for the most part thanks to Michael Keaton but plays things a little too safe.

*still courtesy of TIFF*

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.