Michael Keaton gives a subtle & empathetic performance as a hitman in his waning days.

The minute the mournful saxophone music swells in Knox Goes Away (which is minute one), you think to yourself oh boy, here we go. A car driving in the Los Angeles night, two hitmen, one cool, cultured, and precise, the other seemingly more casual and good-humored about the whole thing, meet in a diner to banter and discuss their next job; none of this fills the viewer with confidence that they’re about to see something they haven’t seen a million times before.

And then the first hitman asks the diner waitress for a cup of coffee, seemingly having forgotten he already has one in front of him, and maybe something different is happening here.

Well, yes and no. Knox Goes Away, Michael Keaton’s second directorial effort, combines a noir-ish thriller with a tragic medical drama, and surprisingly the drama is more compelling than the thriller. Though the former involves an implausibly complicated scheme to cover up a crime, it’s clear that Keaton’s heart, both as a director and an actor, lies with the more realistic latter.

Keaton is John Knox, the hitman who forgets his coffee in the opening scene. Like a lot of movie hitmen (a job that Hollywood would have you think is much more common than it actually is), Knox may be a lone wolf cold-blooded killer, but he also has a great love for literature and philosophy, and a grudging soft spot for Annie (Joanna Kulig), the Polish sex worker with whom he’s had a standing weekly appointment for years. Knox had been the best in the biz, but he’s starting to forget things, including what day it is, and the word for “lock.” The inside of his head has become a noisy, unsettled place, where things, words, and people are there one minute, and then gone the next.

Knox sees a doctor for his memory issues and is given a bleak diagnosis: he has Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a degenerative neurological disorder similar to Alzheimer’s, but with a far faster decline. Listening to Knox’s doctor rattle off the endless bad news about his condition, you might think some dramatic license had been taken, but no: Creutzfeldt-Jakob, lesser-known than Alzheimer’s or dementia, is a dreadful disease that has no treatment, and a life expectancy of no more than two and a half years after diagnosis. Knox has mere weeks left.

With the same kind of business-like impassiveness as when he does his job, Knox sets about putting his affairs in order. However, “going away” for him isn’t going to be easy, not when he finds himself tangled up in two crime scenes at the same time. The first is the accidental death of his partner (Ray McKinnon), and the second involves Knox’s long-estranged son, Miles (James Marsden), who shows up at Knox’s house covered in blood and with a wild story. He’s killed a man in a fit of rage after discovering that the man, a white supremacist, has gotten Miles’s teenage daughter pregnant. 

Though they haven’t spoken in years, nor has Knox ever met his granddaughter, Knox agrees without hesitation to help Miles get out of this pickle, The plan he comes up with is unnecessarily convoluted, silly, and almost certainly would never work in real life, but it’s entertaining to watch it unfold, as a crack police detective (Suzy Nakamura) comes close to catching up with them. Similar to Leonard in Memento, albeit using a notebook instead of his own skin, Knox keeps careful notes on his scheme, as his mind slips away at an ever-increasing clip.

I don’t know if Knox Goes Away would work at all without Michael Keaton’s performance. To be fair, James Marsden is pretty good, too, but he gets to do the big, openly emotional stuff, struggling alternately with fear, anger, and sorrow. When he could have taken a melodramatic “why, me, God” approach to his role, Keaton is instead understated, reacting to everything that happens to him with methodic coolness, because it’s the only way he knows how to be. It’s what makes him an efficient hitman, and it’s what makes him the exact right person for Miles to go to with his problem, even if they know almost nothing else about each other at this point. Keaton, beyond his 80s comedy roles (and presumably the upcoming Beetlejuice Beetlejuice), has always chosen low-key, even when playing a superhero, playing his cards close to the vest and rarely letting the audience know exactly what his character is thinking.

On the other hand, Keaton’s choice to play Knox as a cipher, even when he’s facing imminent death, keeps the audience in the dark about some aspects of his life. We know that he’s estranged from Miles because Knox left him and his mother (Marcia Gay Harden) years ago to become a hitman, but it’s never explained why he chose to become a hitman. It’s treated as something that just happens to families sometimes, like a man leaving his wife and child to start a new family with his mistress. We don’t know how Knox feels about being a hitman, or if he misses his old life. It’s a curious choice, and if not for Keaton’s gruff likability, would likely lose the audience’s interest very quickly.

Knox Goes Away’s best moments are the attempts by Knox and Miles to reconcile on borrowed time. Its most poignant scene is when Miles first appears at Knox’s house, and treats Knox momentarily forgetting who he is (due to his condition) as a mean-spirited dig. They’re forced to address old traumas and resentment, while trying to forge something new on hyperspeed. Nevertheless, strong performances and an interesting premise fight for dominance over lazy cliches, which puts the film solidly in the category of “it’s fine.” Keaton, already underrated as an actor, shows skill as a director too: imagine what he could do with a script that makes more of an effort.

Knox Goes Away is available on streaming starting March 15th.

Knox Goes Away Trailer: