Movie sequels with unwieldy names are rarely my thing. For the Knives Out franchise, though, I’ll make an exception, because writer-director Rian Johnson has found a great groove with his comedic revivals of the Agatha Christie-style whodunit. Following 2019’s Knives Out and 2022’s Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is a Netflix production that is also playing at the Savoy Theater in Montpelier and Majestic 10 in Williston as of press time. Catch it on the big screen if you have a chance, because Steve Yedlin’s cinematography deserves it.
The deal
Young priest Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) used to make a living with his fists, but now he just wants to help people. Sent to a small town in upstate New York, Jud struggles with his role of assistant pastor to the fiery Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), who publicly humiliates any parishioner who doesn’t meet his strict moral criteria.
Wicks holds sway over a cultish core group of faithful, including his lawyer (Kerry Washington); the town doctor (Jeremy Renner); a right-wing sci-fi novelist (Andrew Scott); a disabled cellist (Cailee Spaeny); an online agitator (Daryl McCormack); and the intensely devout Martha (Glenn Close), who considers it her life’s work to uphold Monsignor.
But not everyone is happy with his reign. During the Good Friday service, Wicks receives a fatal stab wound while seemingly alone in a closet — a classic locked-room murder. The local sheriff (Mila Kunis) calls in renowned private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Can he and Jud — a jaded atheist and a man of faith, respectively — put aside their differences and solve the case?
Will you like it?
In the Knives Out tradition, Wake Up Dead Man isn’t subtle about its messaging. If you had any doubts that Wicks represents a certain politician, and his bucolic burg is a metaphor for the nation writ large, Johnson’s screenplay dispels them with a lines about PINOs (priests in name only) and how the belligerent Monsignor could say or do “literally nothing” that would alienate his die-hard followers.
The movie doesn’t offer any notable new insights into MAGA psychology. What it does offer is superb old-school entertainment: a carnival ride of plot convolutions, witty lines and gleefully hammy performances with, at its core, a surprisingly compelling meditation on the real meaning of faith.
Craig’s Blanc continues to be a treasure, with his dinner-theater Southern accent and serene insistence that he’s incapable of not solving a crime. In this outing, Blanc offers a helpful primer on locked-room-mystery rules and delivers his climactic deduction from the church’s absurdly lofty pulpit. That setting is a perfect match for his natural pomposity — the kinder, more progressive twin to Wicks’ bombast.
But Jud is the story’s real protagonist, introducing us to the plot and players via voice-over well before Blanc appears. While we know Jud’s narration may be unreliable — he was no friend to Wicks — O’Connor wins us over instantly. In films such as Challengers and La Chimera, the actor gave new life to the “lovable rogue” archetype. Here, his wry earnestness and flashes of temper add up to star-making charisma. We can believe Jud entered the priesthood to escape the mean streets, and when he and Blanc argue about God, Jud more than holds his own.
With the exception of Close’s deliriously over-the-top church lady, the gallery of suspects isn’t as much juicy fun in Wake Up Dead Man as it was in the original Knives Out. Kunis seems lost as the unfunny sheriff. And the plot twists and turns, thick and fast as they come, won’t stop some intrepid viewers from guessing the killer.
This isn’t a movie to outwit, though — it’s a movie to savor, especially if you have fond memories of PBS’ “Mystery!” When Jud and Blanc aren’t in the towering gothic church, with its play of sunlight and shadows, they’re often traversing an avenue of tall pines, buffeted by mist, to the marble Wicks family crypt. The whole town is an Edward Gorey cocktail, with coziness and creepiness in perfect proportions.
And when Jud forgets all about the mystery to counsel a witness in need (Bridget Everett of HBO Max’s “Somebody Somewhere”), Wake Up Dead Man gains a new level of depth. We realize what was at stake in Jud’s conflict with Wicks: the power of religion to inspire love and healing rather than fear.
Wake Up Dead Man may not make any new converts to the church of Knives Out, but for the already observant, the movie is a gift. This is how adult holiday fare should be: a little edgy, a little warm and fuzzy, and a lot escapist, wrapped up with a shiny nostalgia bow.
If You Like This, Try…
Knives Out (2019; Prime Video, rentable): The series opener takes us to a mansion where Blanc investigates the mysterious demise of a wealthy crime novelist.
Glass Onion (2022; Netflix): Johnson took aim at tech billionaires in the sequel, in which Blanc is invited to solve a murder mystery game at a quirky mogul’s private island.
Evil Under the Sun (1982; Britbox, PLEX, Pluto TV, Prime Video, Roku Channel, Tubi, rentable): Knives Out clearly draws inspiration from star-studded Christie adaptations such as this one, in which Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) solves a murder on a sun-soaked island in the Adriatic. Look for Maggie Smith, James Mason and Diana Rigg.
This article appears in The Reading Issue 2025.
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