Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Image Credit: Rich Fury / Getty Images)
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On December 23rd, Netflix released Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, a very fun murder mystery movie starring Daniel Craig as the world’s greatest detective “Benoit Blanc,” in addition to a variety of big-name actors. The movie is a sequel to 2019’s Knives Out, a monumental success for a movie that didn’t include any tie-ins with the worlds of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Star Wars. And now, I’m here to propose the third entry in this series for director and writer Rian Johnson. This time, Blanc will be investigating a murder committed by one of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Why am I embarking on the creation of this foolish article? Well, for one, I figured it’d be a fun way to spend some time while watching these abysmal 2022-23 Lakers. Two, the Lakers and Hollywood have crossed paths for decades now. I actually don’t think this type of idea is that far-fetched for audiences nationwide. And three, speaking of those intertwining paths, a cameo in Glass Onion perfectly set up the opportunity for a story in the Knives Out universe centered around multiple members of the Lakers past and present (I won’t really talk about Glass Onion too much in this but I will be spoiling the cameo I’m referencing).
Now, of course, in a normal movie, most of these roles would be played by other people, but for the hilarity of this article we are going to assume all of these people are actually in the movie playing fictionalized (but not fictionalized too much) versions of themselves.
I present Showtime: A Knives Out Mystery.
The Cast
Let’s meet our star-studded, purple-and-gold cast. In order of appearance in the movie, Showtime will feature the following people:
- Daniel Craig (as Benoit Blanc)
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
- Jeanie Buss
- Jay Mohr
- Linda Rambis
- Rob Pelinka
- Joey Buss
- Jesse Buss
- Shaquille O’Neal
- LeBron James
- Austin Reaves
If you saw Glass Onion in the past week, you got to see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the same time you first got to see Benoit Blanc grace our screens again. In the scene, Blanc is looking for anything to satisfy his desire for mystery-solving, playing the video game Among Us with Kareem, Natasha Lyonne, and the late Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury.
This serves as the entry point to our Lakers story.
In our movie, Kareem reaches out to Blanc on behalf of his friend, Lakers owner Jeanie Buss. Jeanie wants to put on a little murder mystery game for her and members of the franchise to try and bring spirits up after another disappointing season had just concluded. That makes beautiful, summertime southern California the setting of this story.
Kareem asks Blanc to not solve a mystery here, but instead to comprise one for Jeanie and everyone else. Given how much Kareem helped Blanc through his depressed state at the beginning of Glass Onion, Blanc obliges him and accepts the challenge of coming up with a murder mystery for Jeanie and her Lakers friends. Plus, he quickly realizes that Jeanie’s fiancee is Jay Mohr, who he randomly loved in the comedy scene in the late 1990s.
Jeanie learns of Blanc accepting the job and then calls up all of her favorite people to come out and play. This group includes Mohr, Kurt and Linda Rambis, Rob Pelinka, Jeanie’s brothers Joey and Jesse, Shaquille O’Neal, and LeBron James. She’s found the perfect location: the extravagant Beverley Hills home of Jimmy Goldstein, the businessman who you almost certainly recognize as a repeat courtside ticket holder across the entire NBA. Below you’ll see his home that has been host to some of the most scintillating celebrity parties you could hear about.
Jimmy Goldstein’s property (Image courtesy of www.giggster.com)
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Jimmy Goldstein (Image Credit: Michael Kovac / Getty Images)
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Goldstein lets everyone in, tells them all to have fun, and then leaves to go live whatever crazy life he lives when not at NBA games. Everyone’s all there… except no Kurt Rambis? He only appears via FaceTime, calling in to ask his wife for directions every 20 minutes in the movie because he can’t figure out Google Maps.
They give up on Kurt making it for the game early on in the movie, to which LeBron proposes an easy solution. It turns out that Austin Reaves is his chauffeur and actually drove him to the event. Reaves didn’t make it too far by the time they decided that Kurt couldn’t make it, and now, AR is in the game.
Other than Goldstein, other cameos include famed Lakers announcer Lawrence Tanter, who Jeanie has arranged to announce next steps in the game via pre-recorded audio that plays through the speakers of the property. Besides that, the most hilarious cameo is one from the king of Lakers courtside seats: Jack Nicholson. The chaos pours outside at one point, and there’s Jack and his son Ray, just walking Jack’s dog.
And I’m sure you’re wondering what that chaos includes, huh? Well, just as it happens in Glass Onion, the fake murder mystery game turns into a real murder mystery game. And who drops dead at Goldstein’s estate?
Rob Pelinka, of course.
His death sets the stage for the whodunit, as nearly everyone in the room has some sort of incentive to getting rid of Pelinka (except for Shaquille O’Neal, but let’s be honest he’s there solely because he’s Shaq). Does the nefarious Kurt Rambis actually have something to do with this despite not being there? Did LeBron enact revenge for Pelinka breaking his promises of giving him a championship-contending team? Did the Buss brothers do it to become the head decision-makers? Did Jeanie do it after regretting the contract extension she gave him?
Want to know who the killer is? Well, I can’t give away all those details. Rian Johnson still has to contact me and help me finish off this story.
Once he does, expect to soon see this masterpiece in a theater (or on your Netflix app) near you!
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