‘Wake Up Dead Man’ Review

Released in 2019, Rian Johnson’s ‘Knives Out’ was a tight, captivating mystery hearkening back to the cozy murder stories of Agatha Christie, introducing a modern yet classical detective character in Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc whose crime solving genius was laced with comedy.

Where ‘Knives Out’ contained a tight narrative, its sequel, ‘Glass Onion’, went bigger with middling results, opting for superficial political caricatures over well defined characters and a mystery that was too self-consciously twisty to be satisfying.

‘Wake Up Dead Man’ splits the difference, continuing the second film’s overt political commentary but all in service of its characters and the mystery. While a little messier than ‘Knives Out’ given its high minded ambition, ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ offers both a nuanced take on modern Catholicism and a satisfying whodunnit with an impossible crime, memorable characters, and a series of delightful and surprising twists that lead to an immensely satisfying conclusion.

Much like ‘Knives Out’, ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ follows a flawed but morally pure protagonist in Rev. Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), an idealistic priest and former boxer who is sent to a small church with a virulent leader, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) who uses his pulpit to unleash tirades against the sins of modernity and the moral weakness of sinners and nonbelievers. Wicks, a religious leader who could be a MAGA influencer if he applied himself, uses the church as a tool in the culture wars and creates an inhospitable churchgoing experience for all newcomers, choosing instead to cater his rhetorical red meat to his most loyal followers.

When Wicks is found stabbed in the back in a seemingly impossible crime, Jud is the obvious suspect. Enter Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Seeing Jud’s obvious piety and moral fortitude, Blanc insists on bringing Jud along as he investigates the case, believing unwaveringly in his own ability to solve the impossible and hopefully clear Jud’s name along the way.

Just as in the previous two installments of this franchise, ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ has a starry cast of suspects, all of whom have some semblance of a motive for murdering Monsignor Wicks. There is a struggling author (Andrew Scott) who takes inspiration from the charismatic Monsignor; an alcoholic doctor (Jeremy Renner) drawn by Wicks’s far-right misogny; a frustrated lawyer (Kerry Washington) and her failed but ambitious adopted son (Daryl McCormack); a disabled cellist desperate for a miracle (Cailee Spaeny) and Wicks’s right hand woman (Glenn Close), defending all of Wicks’s bad habits in the name of the church.

‘Wake Up Dead Man’ learned the lesson from the struggles of its predecessor, understanding that it doesn’t matter how clever and timely the mystery is if there isn’t a human story worth caring about. Much like Ana de Armas in ‘Knives Out’, Josh O’Connor delivers a beautiful, sympathetic performance as a man caught up in a violent world out of his control. As Rev. Jud Duplenticy, O’Connor is kind but never weak, patient but never perfect, bringing to life a believable priest struggling to understand how best to build a kinder church in the modern world.

In one scene, Jud and Blanc are in an office together, with Jud on the phone with a woman who can help provide a clue as to who wanted Wicks dead. Jud and Blanc are excited, eager to get the woman off the phone and back to the mystery at hand. But then the woman starts crying, asking Jud for spiritual guidance with a problem in her life. Jud’s excitement dissipates instantly as he remembers himself, leaving the room, speaking tenderly to the woman and comforting her over the phone. This one scene highlights the duality of Jud’s character – he is a man with the same impulses as any other, yet he puts in effort every day to resist those urges in order to better help others, and O’Connell plays this complexity wonderfully.

For the most part, the rest of the star studded cast acquits themselves well – notable exception being Mila Kunis who is woefully miscast as a small town police chief – even if there ultimately isn’t a lot to work with. ‘Knives Out’ functions so well because its roster of suspects is a family with a shared history and as much effort is put into defining their relationships to one another as there is defining each individual relationship to the victim. ‘Wake Up Dead Man’, unfortunately, skimps on this element of its storytelling, describing these characters only in their individual silos and how they were drawn to Monsignor Wicks, mostly relying on each individual actor’s star power to help the viewer distinguish who is who.

Even with its flaws, ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ is an exciting mystery elevated by director Rian Johnson’s steady hand, with some of the most adventurous filmmaking in his recent career. With its ambitious themes and complicated plotting, ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ delivers memorable turns from its cast and story alike, proving that detective fiction is not only the stuff of cable procedurals, but can still surprise and delight on film when handled by the right storytellers.

Wake Up Dead Man
Rated PG-13 for violent content, bloody images, strong language, some crude sexual material, and smoking.
Running Time: 2 hours and 24 minutes

Director Rian Johnson
Writers Rian Johnson
Stars Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church
Rating PG-13
Running Time 144 Minutes
Genres Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery