Wake up Dead Man: Knives Out Mystery is Delcious, Madcap Fun

In 2019, Oscar nominated writer-director Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig revitalized the British drawing room murder mystery with Knives Out, creating their own version of Agatha Christie’s unflappable detective Hercule Poirot with Craig’s brilliant Southerner, Benoit Blanc. The follow-up, Glass Onion, focused on a tech-bro billionaire evoking Herbert Ross’ cult classic The Last of Sheila.  Johnson shifts gears again with his third franchise installment, Wake Up Dead Manwith a intriguing peek into the tensions between faith and logic.

This time, Johnson embarks upon the dark, gothic elements of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue, a seemingly impossible locked-room scenario involving a corpse . Set in a small town in New York and focusing on its local church, Wake Up Dead Man is packed with stars, including Josh O’Connor (Rev. Jud Duplenticy), the younger cleric to Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) an autocratic, abrasive priest, Glenn Close as his right-hand person, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Jeremy Renner and Mila Kunis as a local cop who is as determined as Blanc to solve this seemingly insoluble case.

Jud (O’Connor) is a former boxer who killed someone in the ring. A fate that led him to become a man of the cloth, whose entire life has become a journey of repentance. Giving off “hot priest” vibes, O’Connor exudes the sincerity and struggle Jud is grappling with,  but also the skepticism lof heis circumstances that are lurking behind every smile and smirk of the kid who lives inside this man of faith. So, when he arrives at Our Lady of Perpetual Grace, as Monsignor Wicks’ assistant, he discovers a parish that is a shell of its glory and has slid into a nest of aggression.

Glenn Close, as the devoted veteran of the church, is entering into an era allowing her to peel back the layers of her character arsenal with Martha whose past is adversely affecting her present and future. It’s fascinating to watch her inhabit this buttoned up woman whose needs and desires are challenged by grief. Kerry Washington is deliciously acerbic and diabolical, as only she can pull off, in spades. I was there for every quip and unkind word or phrase thrown at her co-stars with surgical precision.

Yet, the manner in which themes of sin, guilt, greed, and God are woven throughout makes Wake Up Dead Man a balancing act that dangles the prospect of characters being resurrected like Christ himself compelling to behold. With a wink at one’s spiritual curiosity,  Knives Out  is sharp as a tack and a chapter in which Johnson truly has outdone himself by pouncing unapologetically into the prongs of hypocricy laden within the worlds of faith and greed.