Wake Up Dead Man

Third time's the charm

It’s a bit astounding just how different the three Knives Out films are, but against the backdrop of a Hollywood that has become increasingly repetitive and monochromatic, it’s refreshing as hell to see a franchise that has shown a willingness to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. The third installment, Wake Up Dead Man, is the stickiest Benoit Blanc film yet.

2019’s Knives Out was a perfectly enjoyable murder mystery with a nifty twist halfway through its runtime, not the groundbreaking film many made it out to be, but still a damn fun watch. The machinations of the plot were impressive to watch unfold, an aspect that writer-director Rian Johnson reliably nails down, but the themes and ideas it was trying to get across were trite. Rich white racists are bad and no matter how nice they act, they’re ultimately gonna stick together to protect each other, not stuff I disagree with, just a dead horse that has been beaten to death since 2016.

2022’s Glass Onion, on the other hand, was just downright atrocious. While the tropes in Knives Out were a tad played out, in Glass Onion they were just exhausting. It was one of those films where there is not a single likeable character, and while that approach works in something like Glengarry Glen Ross, in Glass Onion it was consistently groan-inducing. It isn’t helped that the one character in the film who is supposed to be good (in Knives Out this was the Ana De Armas role) is represented by an absolutely abysmal piece of acting. I love the music of Janelle Monae, but in Glass Onion, I can’t defend her whatsoever. Her southern accent is perhaps the worst southern accent ever committed to film. It’s an utterly unwatchable performance, and how she received critical praise I will never be able to fathom.

The mystery didn’t do much to help the film’s case, as the “figure it out with the detective” nature of great murder mysteries was eschewed in favor of a decision to essentially toss a bunch of stuff out there for most of the film’s runtime, and then, at the end, have Blanc conveniently wrap it all up with an explanation.

So entering Wake Up Dead Man, I was skeptical. My skepticism could not have been proven more wrong.

This is less of a Benoit Blanc film than the previous two. Instead, the focus is on a young priest named Jud Duplenticy, played by Josh O’Connor. After punching a fellow priest (who everyone agrees had it coming), Father Jud is sent to assist the controversial Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, played by Josh Brolin. In his new role, Jud gets to know Wicks’ congregation, a loyal and tight-knit group that includes fun turns from Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, and others.

One of the best parts of this film is how much it resembles a classic Columbo episode. The murder that brings Daniel Craig’s Blanc to town doesn’t occur until nearly 40 minutes into the film. Blanc, like Columbo, is a known quantity, but the way to elevate a story from good to great is to get the audience to care about everyone else. This film does exactly that.

Where De Armas and Monae’s characters felt like simply necessary protagonists to attach to Blanc, O’Connor’s Jud is someone we truly get to know, understand, and live with. The cast of suspects, while still being archetypal (it is a murder mystery after all), have a great deal more depth of character and humanity than we’ve seen Blanc deal with in the past.

Another strength of the film is the way the plot walks the tightrope of making sense while not being completely predictable. When the killer is revealed, I wasn’t completely floored, but like in Knives Out, these films are less about shocking you with the reveal of a killer, and more about weaving an intricate web of motivations. Johnson, as far as killers go, is less concerned with the “who” than he is the “why”. In a world where movies get spoiled instantly and movie-goers can spot twists from a mile away, it’s a wise approach to the murder mystery. Even if you come into this film already knowing who it is that did the deed, there’s still an interesting and engaging experience to be had.

The aspect of Wake Up Dead Man that truly elevates it for me, however, is the themes that the film is tackling. There are the dueling visions of Wicks, the classic fire-and-brimstone religious figure, and Jud, the priest with a dark past with a desire to be more Christ-like. It is the dynamic between Jud and Blanc, however, that proves to be the most fascinating.

The first conversation between the two is a beautiful piece of ideological back-and-forth. Blanc, a “proud heretic”, dissects the Church, its “empty promise of a child’s fairy tale filled with malevolence”, and expresses his desire to “pop its perfidious bubble of belief and get to a truth I can swallow without choking”.

Jud acknowledges Blanc’s points, that the church is ultimately “storytelling”, but poses the question: “Do these stories convince us of a lie? Or do they resonate with something deep inside us that’s profoundly true? That we can’t express any other way… except storytelling.”

(I was raised very religious, had my angry atheist whiplash, and now in my late 20s find myself opening back up to theology, albeit through a far different lens than before. I will acknowledge that I am in the precise target demographic for this conversation.)

This exchange that suddenly takes the film from simple murder mystery into deep philosophical territory, and while it doesn’t sit in that space permanently, it also doesn’t simply slide back into silly whodunnit. It’s yet another example of the balance that makes this the strongest film in the franchise.

Ultimately, this iteration of Knives Out has convinced me of the value of the franchise’s existence. At any point in history, society needs at least one great detective franchise. One solid film, one bad, and one fantastic? Two out of three is a pretty good batting average. In a world with no Poirot, no Columbo, no Matlock, no Sherlock, no Monk, no Shawn Spencer, and no Jessica Fletcher, Benoit Blanc has proven to be this generation’s great detective.

With Wake Up Dead Man, Blanc finally has his Hound of the Baskervilles, his Etude in Black, his Death on the Nile.

-Jacob