The cases solved by Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), the nattily dressed private detective with the exaggerated Southern drawl, always seem to have a bit of a political bone to pick. In the first “Knives Out” movie, Blanc solved a murder while simultaneously ensuring that a WASP-y family of snobs couldn’t cheat their patriarch’s put-upon nurse — the Latina daughter of an undocumented immigrant — of the inheritance she was legally due. In the second, “Glass Onion,” ultrawealthy moguls, tech billionaires who fancied themselves geniuses and even a men’s rights podcaster got trounced en route to the mystery’s solution; it was no mystery who their real-world analogues were.
“Wake Up Dead Man,” the third installment in the series, sees Blanc return for a very 2025 case: a murder in a church wherein a charismatic preacher has been radicalizing his flock against the evils of worldly modernity, such as “feminist Marxist whores.” The genre reference points for the writer and director Rian Johnson’s mysteries might be old-fashioned (the tales of Agatha Christie, principally), but the social concerns he’s fiddling with are ripped straight from the headlines. Johnson modeled this installment on the locked-room mystery subgenre of crime fiction, with the film itself citing the American writer John Dickson Carr’s 1935 novel “The Hollow Man.” (One might also argue that the original locked-room mystery story, retold every Easter, is the foundation of the Christian faith.)
In characteristic “Knives Out” fashion, this one’s another moderately bawdy romp with a stacked ensemble cast, chock-full of twists and turns, and laced with winking contemporary references. And once again, it’s not just a murder mystery. It has a lot on its mind, mostly revolving around religion: what it is, what it isn’t and how it gets twisted and exploited to incite fear and hate. Somehow, that’s all done with a remarkably light, affectionately irreverent touch.
Blanc is the thread that weaves all these stories together, but the real hero of “Wake Up Dead Man” is Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), a Catholic priest from Albany, N.Y., who used to be a boxer before God got hold of him. After Father Jud has an altercation with a deacon who nobody really likes anyhow, Bishop Langstrom (Jeffrey Wright) reassigns the young priest to Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, a tiny rural parish upstate. The church is shrinking. Perhaps he can do some good there.
The head priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude is Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), who has whipped up an impressive cult of personality from the pulpit, where he preaches a gospel of judgment toward everything and everyone. His inner circle hangs on his every word: Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), a lawyer who has raised her adoptive brother, Cy (Daryl McCormack), an aspiring politician; Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), a former concert cellist who lives with chronic pain; Lee Ross (a particularly funny Andrew Scott), a best-selling science fiction author whose star has faded; and Dr. Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), the local physician, whose wife has recently left him. And, of course, there’s Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close, in a fabulous role), the devoted church lady who has handled all of the parish’s business for decades, and Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church), the groundskeeper, who sticks around because he loves Martha.
Now the stage is set, and don’t worry: I won’t say much more, lest I risk ruining any of the actual mystery plot for you. The important thing is that — as Father Jud quickly discovers — this little flock of insiders is under Wicks’s sway because they’re terrified of displeasing him. His followers seem ready to do whatever he asks of them: “Literally nothing that you say or do is going to change that,” Lee tells Father Jud at one point.
And what a message Wicks preaches. “Our church is assailed by wicked modernity!” he shouts on a typical Sunday, telling the flock that they must take back the “ground we’ve lost” and some day take their “rightful place as rulers of a Christian nation.” He’s especially vicious toward single mothers, but really anyone who can be cast as an aggressor. Threats are useful in keeping the faithful close and in a defensive crouch. Especially since Cy is always lurking around with his camera, shooting videos to post to YouTube (with titles like “There’s G-O-D in DOGE”), where Wicks has a loyal following.
This is the exact opposite of how Father Jud conceives of the church’s job. “It’s this,” he says, holding his arms out wide, “not this,” he continues, making a fist-fighting gesture. “We are here to serve the world, not beat it,” he explains to Blanc, who for his part is an avowed atheist with no interest in religion, God or any of this stuff, and has no compunction in telling Father Jud exactly why. “Wake Up Dead Man” really sings during several scenes in which Father Jud and Blanc are verbally sparring about belief, both because Johnson’s writing feels genuinely wise and well-informed — well beyond typical Hollywood clichés — and because Craig and O’Connor match one another’s energy beautifully.
But it’s clear from a few hints the film drops that Blanc, by now, has a bit of celebrity of his own — Jud has even seen him on “The View.” So there’s more than one famous man who has to think about his ego here, and “Wake Up Dead Man” tussles with what it means to have power or to give it up, to fight for your own pride or let yourself seem to be a fool. Johnson navigates a tricky set of thematic echoes throughout (some of which only popped out to me on second viewing) with deceptive ease, weaving them into the main mystery, which keeps heading in completely unexpected directions. At times it can get a little shaggy. But this is a mystery, so you know you’re going to find out in the end what happens; the fun is in being along for the ride.
And what really makes “Wake Up Dead Man” work is that Father Jud and Benoit Blanc are two peas in a pod, when it comes right down to brass tacks. One draws his strength from a story he believes about God, and one draws his strength from what he believes about man. But neither are uncomplicated men with wholly innocent histories. And that’s why they both want to see the world put right, and why they both love to see the unjust get what’s coming to them. In their own ways, you might say, they both love a good mystery.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery Rated PG-13 almost entirely for a bunch of masturbation jokes, plus, well, the murdering. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes. In select theaters and on Netflix on Dec. 12.
Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005.
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