Review: Michael Keaton's performance is electrifying in 'Knox Goes Away'

Leave it to Michael Keaton. Whoever he's playing, from Beetlejuice to Batman and Birdman, Keaton is brilliant at suggesting a bristling intelligence that's alive to every nuance.

As the star and director of "Knox Goes Away," a twisty and twisted LA-set crime thriller now in theaters, Keaton perversely deprives us of that whip-smart energy we've come to see as his essence.

Not right away, of course. When we first meet John Knox, the brainy hitman portrayed by Keaton, the dude they call "Aristotle" is talking literature with Annie, a Polish sex worker (Joanna Kulig of "Cold War"). Later, in a diner, he's setting up a new job with Muncie (a fine, funny Ray McKinnon), his partner in crime.

But something is off. And Keaton makes sure we feel it. Why is Knox ordering coffee when a full cup is right in front of him? That's what Muncie wants to know. And so do we.

The answer comes the next day when Knox, a Gulf War veteran with PhDs in English and history, sees a neurologist, who nails him with a diagnosis of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a form of fast-moving dementia. It gives him only a few weeks before his identity—who he is and how he thinks—goes away for keeps.

The brain fog kicks in at the worst time, on the job, when Knox mistakenly kills his partner. Sound grim? Keaton doesn't think so, finding glints of dark humor in the script by Gregory Poirier. Still, the tonal shifts in the writing throw the movie off course.

Also remember, "Knox Goes Away" is only Keaton's second film as a director, after 2009's "The Merry Gentlemen" in which he played another assassin in crisis. Is Keaton working out some issues here? Maybe, but they're not what you think.

As Keaton recently said, he doesn't see "Knox Goes Away" as a hitman movie (we're all up to here with those). Think of 2022's "Memory" in which Liam Neeson's contract killer suffered from Alzheimer's. For Keaton, this is a father-son story. Just when Knox is ready to accept his fate, he signs up for one last job at the urging of his estranged son, Miles (James Marsden).

It seems Miles turned violent and killed the predator who raped and impregnated his 16-year-old daughter, Kaylee (Morgan Bastin). The crime scene is a bloody mess. And who better than Knox to clean up the evidence that might implicate Miles.

The director in Keaton choreographs that meticulous plan with stunning precision as the actor in Keaton lets us see the effort it takes for Knox, driven to help his son, to hold it all together with notebooks before his mind starts slip-sliding away.

Keaton is a wiz with actors, drawing a fun, feisty turn from Suzy Nakamura as Emily Ikari, the detective on the case. And Al Pacino is a hoot as Xavier, the Knox mentor who eats Chinese food in a bathtub and brings the film to life when it leans into solemnity, which is too often.

At its best, "Knox Goes Away" cruises on a noirish, "Chinatown" vibe complete with weeping sax solos. It's too bad that Keaton can't stop sentimentality from invading the script, as Knox gets teary about the life he could have led with his ex-wife Ruby (Marcia Gay Harden) and their son.

What holds the film together as it tumbles into incoherence and a contrived surprise ending is Keaton's performance, which remains electrifying even when the script loses its spark. The memory of Keaton on fire as Knox, that's the memory that sticks.