How Does 'Wake Up Dead Man' Rank in the 'Knives Out' Trilogy?
Wake Up Dead Man, the third “Knives Out Mystery” from filmmaker Rian Johnson (which begins streaming Dec. 12 on Netflix), finds Daniel Craig’s suave southern detective, Benoit Blanc, traveling to an upstate New York church to investigate the murder of Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin). A fire-and-brimstone preacher who uses fear tactics to keep a tight hold on a small but influential flock, Wicks comes under the scrutiny and eventual ire of Reverend Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), who’s recently been transferred from a neighboring parish due to an undesirable violent outburst. Duplenticy is the likely suspect to local sheriff Gwendoline (Mila Kunis), and, indeed, all the evidence points to him. But, this being a Knives Out movie, there’s a starry ensemble of potential murderers to contend with, including Andrew Scott as a disgraced sci-fi author; Kerry Washington as a powerful attorney; Jeremy Renner as a lonely divorcée; and Glenn Close and Thomas Haden Church as the frightful churchlady and her kowtowed groundskeeper husband.
It takes the better part of an hour for it to dawn that Wake Up Dead Man feels stale. Until then, Johnson twists the franchise’s template to foreground O’Connor’s disgraced priest as he enters the insular parish and begins to solve a decades-old crime. Except for a quick opening shot to assure audiences he’s still there, Craig’s dapper inspector is kept off-screen until the 45-minute mark. O’Connor, of Challengers and just about everything else of late, is more than adept at the comedic leading man, and each suspect hums with menacing promise. But once Wicks is found with a knife in his back and Blanc enters the equation to quiz the suspects, it begins to feel like running through the paces.
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After three Knives Out movies in six years, it feels like Johnson might be running out of whodunit steam. Conversely, Wake Up Dead Man has all of the things you want from a Rian Johnson movie—the tart-tongued writing; the morally dubious anti-hero ensemble; breathtaking design—in a higher quantity than any of the previous Knives Out movies. There’s a good-natured perversity to both the characters and the action, which goes further than the other installments, upping the stakes but never betraying the tone. Too, Johnson has something to say about religion that is genuinely thought-provoking and emotionally satisfying.
But when it comes to the mystery at its core, Wake Up Dead Man feels bored and more than a little stagnant. It commits that deadly whodunit sin: letting the audience get ahead of the characters. This is the most busily and outlandishly plotted of the trilogy, but the myriad reveals and reversals, while occasionally amusing in the moment, are unilaterally labored. At 145 minutes, the movie too often slows when it should accelerate. This has been a common problem throughout the trilogy—all of Johnson’s Knives Out movies outstay their welcome—but here the length conspires with the convolutions to dull the senses.
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On the plus side, Johnson makes the best use yet of his sprawling cast. While previous installments struggled to make substantial each of the supporting roles, and didn’t make a convincing case for many of them to be plausible suspects, Wake Up Dead Man gives each part definition and substance. As is Johnson’s penchant, the smaller roles are the most memorable. Franchise stalwart Noah Segan is very amusing in a cameo; but it's comedian Bridget Everett, as a mournful local who seeks Reverent Duplenticy’s counsel, who makes the most affecting impression.