Knives Out is a reminder that a film can be both genuinely smart and genuinely fun. Rian Johnson delivers a mystery that knows you know the rules and works around that knowledge with considerable ingenuity.

Harlan Thrombey, a wildly successful mystery novelist, is found dead the morning after his birthday celebration. His family, a rogues’ gallery of self-serving parasites (the film is not subtle about its class critique), are all suspects. Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, using an accent of indefinite Southern provenance with obvious delight) is brought in for reasons no one can quite explain.

The film’s structural gambit, revealing what actually happened fairly early, is bold. Johnson uses it to shift the mystery from whodunnit to how-they-did-it-and-will-they-get-away-with-it. The engine changes mid-film, and the audience rolls with it because Johnson has been generous with clues and honest with misdirection.

Ana de Armas as Marta Cabrera, the Thrombey family nurse and the film’s true center, is excellent: moral, resourceful, and more interesting than anyone around her. Her dynamic with Craig is the film’s best relationship.

The ensemble playing the Thrombey family, Chris Evans (playing against type magnificently), Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, is one of the great comedy ensembles of recent years. Everyone knows exactly what film they are in.

Sharp, funny, and politically engaged without being heavy-handed. Knives Out is what crowdpleasing genre filmmaking looks like at its best.