Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) tackles his biggest mystery yet—the existence of God and the transcendent miracles He alone can produce—in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third entry in Rian Johnson’s star-studded sleuthing series.
Predictably, the Almighty is no match for the peerless detective, whose newest case involves a small-town priest with a shady past who’s suspected of slaying his Monseigneur in a fashion that seems, to the unrivaled gumshoe, “impossible.”
Slightly downplaying its funniness in favor of ghostly gothic thrills and theological questions about faith, doubt, and absolution, the film—premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival ahead of its Nov. 26 theatrical release and Dec. 12 Netflix bow—is another intricate, rousing whodunit that maintains the franchise’s undefeated record.
Wake Up Dead Man may pivot around its incomparably intelligent protagonist, but it sidelines him for its lengthy first chapter in order to lay the groundwork for his inevitable deductive magic.
Reverend Jud (Josh O’Connor) is a boxer-turned-priest with a dark secret who, thanks to his punchy temper, is sent to a remote New York parish whose sole priest, Monseigneur Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), is described by Jud’s compatriot (Jeffrey Wright) as a “d—.”
As Jud quickly learns, that assessment is spot on. Wicks is a domineering demagogue whose righteous fury stems from his bitterness toward his mother, the “Harlot Whore,” who sought her father’s enigmatic fortune (which he likened to the Garden of Eden’s apple) and, after failing to acquire it, trashed the church.
This original sin is as fundamental to Wicks as the one in the Bible, and it fuels his nastiness, compelling him to scare away prospective parishioners, antagonize anyone who enters his orbit, and rail about the need to protect oneself against the world with toughness and violence.
With a scruffy beard and long gray locks, the fire-and-brimstone Wicks looks more than a bit like the man upstairs, and he doesn’t care for Jud, torturing the transplant with highly detailed confessions about his masturbation habits.
Jud isn’t fond of Wicks either, and he’s frustrated by the loyalty of the Monseigneur’s dwindling disciples, who include boozy divorcé Dr. Nat (Jeremy Renner), handicapped cellist Simone (Cailee Spaeny), on-the-rocks sci-fi author Lee (Andrew Scott), bitter lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), and Vera’s failed-politician “son” Cy (Daryl McCormack), who’s actually the bastard child of her father and, therefore, her brother.
To this mix of future suspects, Wake Up Dead Man also adds groundskeeper Samson (Thomas Haden Church) and the church’s jack-of-all trades Martha (Glenn Close), who loved Wicks’ dad like a father.
From the instant he arrives, Jud is made to feel like an unwanted outsider, and his standing goes from bad to worse when, during Good Friday service, Wicks takes a temporary breather in a storage closet and, seconds later, drops dead—the victim, all evidence suggests, of a blade in his back that boasts as its handle the same demon-head lamp finial that a drunken Jud had discarded near the church. Since Jud was on the chancel at the time of Wicks’ murder, and there’s no alternate way in or out of the closet (or anywhere to hide a device that might have facilitated the stabbing), everyone is perplexed.
Enter Blanc, who’s galvanized by this “locked-door mystery,” and is totally unsurprised to learn that the congregation’s reading group syllabus was chockablock with novels (by Agatha Christie, Edgar Allan Poe, and John Dickson Carr) detailing such clever crimes. Prodded by local sheriff Geraldine (Mila Kunis), he enthusiastically embarks on his investigation.
Blanc is no fan of the good book (he calls himself “a proud heretic”) but his disbelief is put to the test by this scenario. Johnson embellishes his tale with myriad small, potentially crucial details whose relevance is only later revealed, and he complicates it via a bevy of bewildering twists which suggest that the supernatural might be at work in this modest house of worship.
Wake Up Dead Man ties Craig’s contempo Poirot in knots, forcing him to reckon with clues that don’t add up, hypotheticals that invariably flame out, and divine matters that he isn’t inclined to indulge. In Craig’s talented hands, the Southern-accented gentleman continues to be a charismatic hero—smarter and shrewder than everyone he encounters, and yet not without a sense of humor or humility in the face of daunting obstacles and formidable adversaries.
Johnson dives headfirst into holy waters with his sequel, having Blanc and Jud debate issues of mercy, forgiveness, judgement, and grace as they attempt to unravel a conspiracy that’s punctuated by false confessions, additional bodies, and an apparent Christ-like resurrection (on Easter Sunday, no less).
Wake Up Dead Man wants to have its Communion wafer and eat it too, and for the most part, it does, repeatedly upping the exciting ante with revelations and left turns without abandoning its theological concerns. With so much going on, the material’s wittiness occasionally suffers; despite a few laugh-out-loud bits (the best: Blanc stating that they must “nail” the killer, and interrupting a mea culpa by playing The Phantom of the Opera theme on an organ), Johnson proves more interested in the spiritual than the silly.
Still, the film is light on its feet, its action blazing about with a quasi-cartoon energy fit for “Scooby-Doo shit.”
The tension between Blanc’s quest for justice and Jud’s desire for love and mercy lends Wake Up Dead Man a heft that wasn’t present in its two predecessors, and it pays off during an extended explanatory conclusion that weaves the proceedings’ numerous elements together.
Johnson generously gives every one of his players multiple amusing moments to shine, and they all take advantage of their opportunities, especially the fantastically charming and soulful O’Conner, a scene-stealing Close, and a loopy Scott as a paranoid writer who’s gone so far off the deep end that he’s built a moat around his home.
In terms of pure, heady kicks, it outpaces Knives Out but falls just short of Glass Onion. In the big picture, however, such distinctions are rather inconsequential; more important is that Johnson’s franchise remains a sly and sure-footed delight, as well as demonstrates, with its religiously minded latest, that it’s capable of coloring its Christie-esque mysteries in a variety of shades.
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