1 of 5 | Daniel Craig (R) and Josh O’Connor star in “Wake Up Dead Man,” in theaters Wednesday. Photo courtesy of Netflix
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 24 (UPI) — Wake Up Dead Man, in theaters Wednesday, is a faithful iteration of the Knives Out formula. The third entry in the whodunnit series adds a poignant twist to the comedy and mystery.
Josh O’Connor plays Rev. Jud Duplenticy, a clergyman who is moved to a church in Chimney Rock, N.Y., after assaulting another priest. Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) heads that house of worship, where detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) arrives after Wicks is killed and Jud and the parishioners become suspects.
Since the mystery is set in and around a church, writer/director Rian Johnson has fun with Catholicism, though never mocks the religion. Wicks uses profanity and likes to make people uncomfortable with his proselytizing, but he is still a man of faith.
Jud and Blanc have a compelling dynamic of faith vs. logic. Blanc has a legitimate beef with religion’s misogyny, homophobia and justification of violence, but Jud makes a sincere case for the value of stories that resonate with truths, despite their occasional or frequent misuse.
Furthermore, Jud maintains faith amid his own sins of violence. More importantly, the film respects the priest as someone to whom people turn to in times of need. Occasionally, a random character asks Jud to pray for them, and Jud takes a break from the case to attend to religious duty.
Jud’s belief in having compassion for even the guilty is another poignant theme for the third entry in a film series about murders.
There are hints of meta acknowledgments that Wake Up Dead Man and other Knives Out films exist in a world where mystery novels exist. A book club list of influences on the crime includes more than one Agatha Christie title, but John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man is the primary influence.
The mystery itself is as sound as ever, though perhaps a bit longwinded. Aside from some interstitials, Blanc does not appear for the first 40 minutes.
The first act does have a lot of new characters and motivations to explain, but does so less organically than previous entries. The device is Blanc reading a letter penned by Jud, but it feels like a lot of “and then this happened” and “this is so and so who does such and such.”
Some such characters include Martha (Glenn Close), a woman who has been with the church since she was a child, and Dr. Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), a divorced alcoholic doctor.
Vera Draven (Kerry Washington) is a lawyer forced to raise her brother, Cy (Daryl McCormack), an influencer and her father’s illegitimate son. Meanwhile, author Lee Ross (Andrew Scott) is praying for the inspiration for his next book.
Others are Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), a former musician now in chronic pain, who donates all her money to the church while praying for healing; Chief Geraldine Scott (Mila Kunis), the local officer on the case; and Samson (Thomas Haden Church), the church groundskeeper.
The new additions make for an ensemble of juicy and entertaining roles once the film gets going. Though not quite as clever as Glass Onion, the thematic poignancy makes Wake Up Dead Man distinct in the franchise.
Wake Up Dead Man will begin streaming on Netflix Dec. 12.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.