Genre: Action/Crime
Director: DJ Caruso
Writer: Joshua Collins
Based on the television series
Cast: Chris Pratt, Dakota Johnson, Dean Norris, Aja Naomi King, Jeff Goldblum, Charles Dance, Lexi Rabe, Hugh Laurie (voice)
Plot: The film starts with an undercover police officer, Michael Long (Chris Pratt), on an assignment.
Las Vegas, Nevada: The assignment: rescuing a woman who is supposedly a star witness to bringing down an organized crime leader, Vinzent San-Martino (Dean Norris) of the ruthless San-Martino Family. The captured woman is Patrice Torres (Aja Naomi King) and before the events of the film, Patrice had already been captured and used as a prostitute. She goes through the casino that the San-Martinos run, asking gamblers for a good time. This is just one of the ways for the family to get their money back.
Michael manages to get Patrice’s attention and takes her up into one of the casino’s hotel rooms. Here, he reveals who he is and that he is there to save her. She appears to be happy. She tells Michael that they have a short amount of time before members of the San-Martino family break into the room to beat Michael up and rob him, a tactic they use to ensure they do get ALL of their money back.
Michael and Patrice escape out of the hotel window and into Michael’s awaiting car; just as the robbers break into the hotel room. They call Vinzent and tell him what happened, Vinzent doesn’t at all seem bothered, he just says “Good, now go get them.”
A chase ensues, where a San-Martino owned vehicle chases them down. They run Michael off the road, whose vehicle flips over and lands on its wheels. Michael looks over at Patrice, she appears to be knocked out.
The mobsters corner Michael with guns drawn. Michael puts his hands up, albeit he is upset and believes Patrice died in the accident. “You are all under arrest,” Michael says.
“There will be no arrests tonight Michael,” Patrice is heard, she is standing behind Michael with a gun drawn on him. No wonder Vinzent was so calm on the phone, everything was going according to their plan.
Patrice mentions that the law goes through them in this town, not the other way around. Patrice shoots Michael in the face. Patrice walks over to one of The Family owned vehicles, telling the other goons that “if there’s anymore left of him, take him out.” The goons beat Michael severely as he blanks out.
Michael wakes up, his face wrapped in a head bandage. A couple of men, Walter (Jeff Goldblum) and Devon (Charles Dance), are standing at Michael’s bedside with a surgeon. Walt is a billionaire in his 60s, and founder of a law organization known as FLAG. An organization Walter built with Devon, an Englishman as his right hand man, since the San-Martino family have the real police in their back pockets for several years. Michael didn’t realize the police were crooked, they sent him on the assignment in the hopes to get him ‘whacked’ after trying to get too close and refusing to drop the case.
They remove Michael’s face bandages, and his face had been reconstructed. “Looks a lot better than the hamburger meat lookin face he had when he came in here with,” the surgeon jokes.
While Michael is recovering from the surgery, Devon reveals to Michael that Walt isn’t just the founder of FLAG, he also built KITT (voiced by Hugh Laurie), a artificially intelligent vehicle built from an old Pontiac Firebird. Devon says Walt wanted Michael to be KITT’s driver, and this is where we meet KITT for the first time in the film. Devon asks Michael to go for a test drive and get acquainted with KITT, since KITT is not like other vehicles. KITT is practically indestructible, can drive itself if the driver is unable to, you name it. “Will it get me a coffee too?” Michael jokes.
Michael wouldn’t know what exactly that means until KITT begins to talk to Michael, and not in a normal machine-to-person kind of conversation, converse as in being fully self aware, having its own thoughts and feelings. At first, Michael is apprehensive toward the thought of a car THAT intelligent. He confronts Devon about turning off the talking feature, Devon says he can’t do that, and reveals that Walt is dying and handpicked Michael to be his crime fighter.
Michael visits Walt, who is bedridden and nearly dead. Walt’s daughter, Samantha and his granddaughter, Penelope (Lexi Rabe), are also at his bedside. We get that moment of ‘love at first sight’ for Michael and Samantha. Walt’s last words to him were to keep his daughter and granddaughter safe. Michael says he can’t take down an entire criminal organization by himself. Walt tells him that it only takes one person to make a difference.
Walt passed away, Devon says he was tasked to give Michael an entirely brand new identity. “The world you knew, you no longer know. Michael Long no longer exists, you are now Michael Knight.”
Samantha isn’t feeling at all good at the way Walt died. “It didn’t seem that long ago that he was so healthy, something got him, and got him fast.” She explained to Michael.
Samantha begins her own investigation on the death of her father, using KITT’s technology to help her in the investigation. She would eventually learn that the San-Martino family had been poisoning the water treatment plant, and more people are dying as a cause to it, and everyone in power from the Mayor to the police have turned a blind eye to it.
The San-Martino Family are begin to suspect that Samantha is getting too close to the fire and pay her a visit at her house, led by Patrice and one of her tough goons. In the midst of the assault on Samantha’s house, Patrice kidnaps Penelope and leaves town with her.
Michael and Samantha take KITT to hunt down Patrice. They find Patrice’s muscles hiding out in a garage in a scrapyard. A chase that lead them through desert and up a mountain ensues. KITT eventually catches up to them and bumps them off course, sending their car nearly over the edge of the mountain.
Michael and Samantha interrogate them and the say they will help them if they cooperate. Once they eventually reveal the whereabouts of Penelope, being held captive in a slaughterhouse.
Michael and Samantha go to leave with KITT, with the goons asking about them. “We said we were going to help you, we never said how,” Michael said.
“Yeah, we were going to help you by not asking KITT to push ram you off the side of the mountain,” Samantha says.
KITT takes Michael and Samantha to the slaughterhouse, where they find Penelope and some of the San-Martinos with Patrice leading the charge.
After the action packed shootout, Michael and Samantha corner Patrice. Patrice gets knocked out, Michael tells Samantha to take Penelope to KITT, that he doesn’t want her to see what he’s going to do to Patrice.
When she wakes up, Patrice is tied to a conveyor belt with a blade on the end of it. After interrogating her on where he can find Vinzent, he reveals who he really is to her, that he was the guy she tried to have killed and messed up his face. She pleads and begs for her life to be spared and offers all the money in the world and says where he could find Vinzent.
Michael decided to let her go after she reveals everything to him. “But I’m still going to need a piece of that face of yours,” Michael says, as a way to get some form of revenge on Patrice. The scene transitions out as we don’t see the face-cutting, but we can hear the shrill screams in the transition from the previous scene to Michael driving Samantha and Penelope in KITT’s backseat, Penelope sleeping on her mother’s lap.
Michael leaves Samantha and Penelope with Devon, knowing they’ll be safer if the San-Martinos want to come back for them.
Vinzent San-Martino is onto Michael and asks that everyone he has in his back pocket to take out Michael, so Michael and KITT are in a danger as they find and chase down Vinzent’s car. As KITT chases Vinzent, KITT is being pursued by anyone who works for or with Vinzent. A nice lengthy chase through Vegas, the desert, a highway and would end at the Hoover Dam. Michael chases Vinzent, and the final showdown ensues.
Vinzent gloats about how he has the whole town, the mayor and the police in his back pocket, and having him arrested will do nothing. Vinzent ends up slipping off the side of the dam.
In the denouement, there is a news report that explains Vinzent San-Martino had been killed and the Mayor and chief of police were arrested due to their corruption and covering up that the San-Martino Family was poisoning the Las Vegas’ water supply. Measures are going to be taken to get things back to normal for citizens.
Michael is shown watching the news while Penelope is asleep snuggled up next to him. Samantha picks her up to take her to bed and kisses Michael. “You coming to bed?” Samantha asks.
“Maybe in a little while,” Michael answers.
Michael meets up with KITT in the garage and takes him out for a ride as the Knight Rider theme can be heard. Michael heard the voice of Walt saying “one person can make a difference, Michael”
Credit roll.
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