4 Great Movie private investigators
Who doesn’t love a clever “whodunit”? But let’s be real: a mystery movie is usually only as good as the detective trying to crack the case. Here are 4 of the best PIs to ever hit the big screen.
Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) in Marlowe – Famous hardboiled crime-fiction novelist and screenwriter Raymond Chandler created the character Philip Marlowe in 1939, and the brooding private detective has been portrayed by everyone from Humphrey Bogart to Elliot Gould to Powers Boothe to Danny Glover in both films and TV series over the decades. Now Liam Neeson joins their ranks in this thriller from Academy Award winning director Neil Jordan, where Marlowe tries to find an heiress’s (Diane Kruger) missing lover.
Detective Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) in, um, Detective Pikachu – We just spent my kids’ spring break in Tokyo because during the pandemic I promised them we’d go to “the birthplace of Pokémon” after it was safe to travel internationally again. So you could say that when Detective Pikachu came out in 2019, my family was all over it. As someone who watches a lot of crappy children’s movies, I can’t tell you how pleasantly surprised I was by just how GOOD this one is! Justice Smith plays Tim Goodman, who once wanted to be a Pokémon trainer but is now an insurance agent. Tim meets (and is the only one who can understand) the cute, yellow and lightning-tailed Pikachu (voiced by Reynolds) when he returns home to collect his father’s things after a tragic car wreck takes his dad’s life. However, Pikachu believes Tim’s dad is still alive … and so the sleuthing begins. In writing this post I was delighted to learn that a Detective Pikachu sequel is currently in the works!
Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) in Knives Out and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery – Speaking of sequels, even though the Oscar-nominated Glass Onion had “A Knives Out Mystery” as its subtitle, franchise writer-director Rian Johnson intends future installments to bear the tag “A Benoit Blanc Mystery.” That’s the sign of a star detective! In both movies to date, Craig plays Blanc with a weird Southern drawl and a mind as sharp as a tack, able to decipher clues and piece together what happened in complex murder cases with multiple suspects. I can’t wait to see what he’ll have to deal with next time around …
Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) in Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express – Created by Agatha Christie and appearing in 33 of her novels, Belgian detective Poirot is known for his magnificent mustache, his love of a perfectly boiled egg, and his impeccable style. And like Blanc, he’s a master at dealing with sprawling lists of murder suspects in glamorous settings. In addition to starring as Poirot, Branagh directed an A-list cast in both films, and has a third installment coming out this September—A Haunting in Venice—where Poirot must solve the case of a séance gone horribly wrong (yep, someone’s killed).