That one starred David Janssen and was created by Roy Huggins. Viewers know from the git-go know who did it-the fun is in watching Charlie figure it all out, in a parade of flashbacks.īut the whole set-up also reminds me of The Fugitive (1961-67), which also featured someone on the run who conveniently trips over trouble on a weekly basis. A lot of the press namedrops Columbo and The NBC Mystery Movie (1971-77) as inspirations, and its inverted mystery format certainly rings some bells. It’s a conscious effort by Johnson to evoke the the “case-of-the-week” TV format of his youth, and there’s a serious retro vibe to the whole thing, right down to the bright yellow san serif opening credits and musical background. She lives out of her shitbox Barracuda mostly, but fortunately for viewers, she conveniently stumbles into a murder that needs solving every episode. Things go seriously awry, though, when her best friend is murdered, and Charlie has to go on the lam (it’s complicated) for murder of the casino’s manager. So she kept her head down, eking out a living as a cocktail waitress in a casino while living in a beat-up, sun-blasted trailer (shades of Rockford!) out in the desert. She used that at one point to make a living as a professional gambler, but that lead to seriously pissing off a casino owner or two. The hook is that Charlie’s some kind of a human lie detector, who somehow knows immediately if someone’s bullshitting or not. She’s more P.I.-adjacent, a wise-cracking former casino worker and full-time shit magnet with a cool but battered muscle car (a blue 1969 Plymouth Barracuda) who’s on the run from assorted parties on both sides of the law. No, Natasha Lyonne’s CHARLIE CALE isn’t playing a P.I.

Just weeks later, in January 2023, Johnson’s latest foray into the crime and mystery genre, Poker Face, made its debut. The obligatory sequel, Glass Onion, followed in December 2002. Then Johnson dished up Knives Out, a 2019 crowd-pleaser which introduced former Bond Daniel Craig as foppish, Southern-fried gentleman detective Benoit Blanc. genre has had in a long, long time.įirst he gave us 2005’s Brick, a sly reworking of noir tropes, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a teenage would-be Marlowe working his wall through the mean hallways of his high school. Writer/director Rian Johnson may just be the best undercover friend the P.I.

Poker face show car