Over the last few years, there has been an influx of films that take place in one location. Filmmakers have started to figure out this is a cheaper way to make movies. These types of movies can be interesting,  but I’ve also seen some that weren’t that good. The latest film using this trope is The Knife co-written by, directed by and starring Nnamdi Asomugha. He’s pulling Triple duty on this movie. With the help of the Duplass brother, he created a short but intense drama about the human condition. How you overthink things and earn public scrutiny the wrong way. This film is a lesson for everyone out there, and it’s not a good one.

Chris (Nnamdi Asomugha) is married to Alexandra (Aja Naomi King), and they have two daughters, Kendra (Amari Alexis Price) and Ryley (Aiden Gabrielle Price) and a baby boy. They live in Towson County, Maryland. One night, while they were sleeping, a woman broke into their home. Chris wakes up and confronts her with a knife. She is a crack addict looking for drugs, but he doesn’t know that at the time. The film cuts to the mother and daughters running out of their rooms towards the kitchen where they heard a noise. Next thing you know, the woman is lying on the ground with the knife in her hand.

This is a classic case of a person breaking into another person’s home and getting what they deserve. Not everything is as cut and dry as that, though. Especially once the police are called. Detective Francis Carlsen (Melissa Leo) does things by the book. She is very thorough. She explains that she has to separate all the members of the story to get the facts straight. And wouldn’t you know things don’t exactly line up. The families’ stories don’t match. This raises the antlers of the veteran detective. Even a cop that shows up on the scene, Officer Padilla (Manny Jacinto) suspects something isn’t right. This doesn’t bode well for this family. 

There is an undertone of racism in this film. The police are mostly white, and the main family in the movie is Black. They moved into a nicer neighborhood, and that’s a red flag for the police. When they started acting nervous, things didn’t seem right for these police. Leo’s character does her best to decide and conquer as police usually do to get to the truth. Having been in a similar situation, I can honestly say I felt a little bit of deja vu. Almost the same thing happened to me about 8 or so years ago, but because I was alone they had different officers ask me what happened five times to see if I said the same thing all five times and I did of course so I was exonerated from doing any wrongdoing. It was a natural death. That’s all I’ll say right here on that subject. 

Leo is an Academy Award winner for her role as the mother of Dickie Ecklund and Irish Mickie Ward in The Fighter, Alice Ward. She’s had an illustrious career. I haven’t seen her in very much lately, though. She has come back with a bang in this movie. She’s the grizzled veteran detective trying to get to the bottom of this mystery death. She’s so good at pushing the right buttons and asking the right questions. Her character is a pro at putting the family against each other. All her career has led her to play this character with a little disdain to her. She sees this,  what seems like, a happy family in this nice house and she can’t stand it. I surmise she is jealous of them. Leo can do this kind of role in her sleep. The way she talks and dictates her demands to the family is truly professional. She was very believable as this older woman detective. 

Someone who I haven’t mentioned yet is that triple threat, Asomugha.  He is an actor I’ve seen before in “Sylvia’s Love,” but I didn’t know he was such a triple threat. He did a terrific job in all three phases of his work on this film. The acting was good because he showed how nervous any Black man would be in these circumstances. It was chilling watching him squirm under the knife, no pun intended of the Leo character. As the writer/director, he knew the exact buttons he had to push to get himself and the other actors to do the right thing in this movie. It was pretty amazing. I’ve seen others do a similar type of thing in films, but not as good as he does here. He was doing a great job balancing all three of the things he did. What an amazing guy to keep an eye out for in the future. The sky is up for this up and coming actor/director/writer.

The Knife is an amazing film. If it weren’t a true story, you wouldn’t know it. It seemed that way to me. Asomugha balances all aspects of the story and film perfectly. He knows exactly what to do and say as a character, and the script is exceptional. Even though I was in a similar type of situation as this, I’m not Black, so I don’t know how it feels to go through this from that point of view. It can’t be easy. Leo is perfectly cast as this grizzled detective trying to get to the bottom of this, but she may be a little biased in her conclusions. All the cast are terrific in this very short 85-minute film. This was something I hope people give a chance to this coming weekend when it comes out in theaters. It’s a rarity of a movie that genuinely feels authentic to its subject matter. Asomugha is a star on the rise.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen