Title: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Describe This Movie In One Jewel of the Nile Quote:
TARAK: Ralph, that is not the Sufi way.
RALPH: I don’t know what got into me, Jewels. Every time I’m around this guy he makes me crazy.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Like if that Southern colonel from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons solving crimes.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3.5 Our Time in Edens out of 5.
Tagline: N/A
Better Tagline: “The best priests are the ones who murdered people in their past lives.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Murder! Murder most foul has been committed at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, and Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin) is the victim. The list of suspects is both lengthy and colorful. Is it newly installed Father Jud (Josh O’Connor)? Or perhaps Wick’s right-hand woman Martha (Glenn Close)? And let’s not forget the flock, which includes lawyer Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), the town doctor (Jeremy Renner), a former bestselling author (Andrew Scott), and a celebrated cellist (Cailee Spaeny). Thanks goodness famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is on the case.
“Critical” Analysis: The Knives Out movies — of which Wake Up Dead Man is the third — aren’t really about the mysteries. The first two films solved their whodunits by the second act, backfilling details we’d assumed were tangential to the main event. Glass Onion threw in a second act twist that some felt was a cheap trick, though my problems were more with the second movie’s pacing and performances, especially compared to Knives Out’s cast.
Writer/director Rian Johnson, closing out his 500 million dollar Netflix deal, leans more into character development this time around. Father Jud’s pre-clergy background, Vera and Cy’s shared past, and Martha’s pained history with the church and Monsignor Wicks. We’re aware of the so-called “Good Friday Murder” almost from the jump, but Johnson takes a while building to it.
Wake Up Dead Man is at least somewhat less cluttered than its predecessor. There are still a healthy number of red herrings and fakeouts, but setting the film in a less exotic location and eschewing any body-double shenanigans keeps the action focused. It also doesn’t hurt that O’Connor, Close, and Brolin are all bringing their “A” game. Brolin especially is enjoying a one-two combo of scumbag roles (he’s Dan Killian in last weeks’ The Running Man).
Johnson also doesn’t shy away from social commentary, though he’s less overt about it than Jacob Thrombey’s incel subreddit or Birdie Jay’s racist Tweets. Cy and Andrew Scott’s fading author Lee Ross are both hoping to ride Monsignor Wicks’ coattails to social media fame, with the former presented as an opportunist in the vein of George Santos and the latter a possible stand-in for Dilbert creator Scott Adams.
Case in point: after sharing his litany of failed issues he tried to use to jumpstart his political career, Cy unironically remarks, “People are just numb these days. I don’t know why.”
And then there’s Craig. The vaunted Benoit Blanc is still apparently the World’s Greatest Detective (sorry, Batman), but in Wake Up Dead Man, he’s fallible as well. Craig clearly enjoys the hell out of this character, and Johnson here gives him some refreshing moral ambiguity. Not everything needs to be shared with the police, after all. And if withholding ill-gotten gains makes life difficult for someone, what’s one more disgruntled asshole in the world?
Wake Up Dead Man also marks the first time Johnson addresses questions of faith (not counting Princess Leia’s “She Is Risen” moment in The Last Jedi). The Roman Catholic Church still holds some hope and mystery for young Father Jed, while for most of the “hardened cyst of regulars” at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, it’s a cudgel. Monsignor Wicks wearily refers to himself as a “warrior for Christ,” taking up spiritual arms against the forces of modernity (and, one assumes, progressivism) assailing it.
Due respect to the Monsignor, but the Church really has no one to blame for its massive list of enemies but itself.
One the other end of the divide is Blanc himself, who emphatically rejects the dogma … until he doesn’t. And as is the case with all these movies, you find yourself wondering if Blanc’s florid statements aren’t in service of the deeper plot.
Is it too early to say that Johnson is Shyamalan-ing himself? I don’t think the comparison really fits, since there’s a difference between mere formula and the inevitability of one big twist. Wake Up Dead Man still suffers from the familiarity of the Knives Out blueprint, but is more thoughtful than its predecessors. All the same, it’s probably just as well we’re finally laying Benoit Blanc to rest. Figuratively speaking.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is in theaters Wednesday.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.