Detective Benoit Blanc is the main protagonist in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, a gripping mystery-thriller tale that circles around the detective played by former ‘007’ actor Daniel Craig who tries to solve an apparently impossible murder by questioning a large, unruly group of eccentric but equally complex suspects, before rounding them all up to name the villain. 

The much-anticipated film of this year, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will star Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Janelle Monae, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Madelyn Cline, and Kate Hudson. It will premiere on Netflix on December 23. And before that, the film will have its global premiere on September 10 at the Toronto International Film Festival.

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Who is Detective Benoit Blanc?

Blanc is known as “The Last of the Gentleman Sleuths,” and he portrays that type of character in many ways. He’s charismatic, pragmatic, genteel, a cigar chomper, but deviously creative, smart, and an all-around good detective. Despite the fact that these archetypes are usually British (and are played by British actors), Blanc speaks like a member of the Southern aristocracy with an accent described by Ransom as a “Kentucky Fried Foghorn Leghorn Drawl.”

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Blanc is much classier than most examples of this archetype, despite being as stealthy, snarky, persevering, and sardonic as most gentlemen sleuths. He’s less of a womaniser (which is ironic and slightly tongue-in-cheek given that he’s played by James Bond actor Daniel Craig) and more of a delightful, amiable, and well-meaning man. Even his manipulative tendencies serve a purpose. He takes his job sincerely and wants justice to be served in general. He can appear bumbling at times, but he has a towering intellect, as he was able to recognize right away that Marta had something to do with Harlan’s death after seeing a strain of dried blood on the shoe she wore the night Harlan died.

According to IMDB, Rian Johnson stated that the following films and plays inspired Knives Out: Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun (1982), Murder by Death (1976), Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (1978), The Last of Sheila (1973), Deathtrap (1982), Clue (1985), Gosford Park (2001), The Mirror Crack’d (1980), Something’s Afoot (1977), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The (2019).