The Knives Out series has quickly and strongly placed itself into the show business as each addition to the series is the newest who-dun-it mystery movie to watch out for, with a charismatic Daniel Craig on the lead and a continuous star-filled cast changing in every iteration. The people were looking and hoping for a new film of the genre, as shown by the incredible $300 million box office the first film achieved on a $40 million budget, opening the doors for director Rian Johnson to continue and expand upon it. This leads us to the third film of this entertaining universe.
“Wake Up Dead Man” takes place in New York in a small town and an even smaller church, where the main murder occurs as the priest of this church, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, died right in the middle of a break between mass. These masses were attended by an extremely manipulated group of followers as he continued to scare new believers from joining. The assassination occurs during a long-term feud between Wicks and recently arrived Reverend Jud Duplenticy, a younger and very different opiniated believer of the Church, who strongly opposes against the ideals of Wicks and wished to change the church from the same rotted words that made it such an aggressive environment.
The main suspects of the film are all the regular audience of Wicks’ preaching, and more strongly Duplenticy as he showed a dislike towards the victim from the start. Josh O’Connor makes an extraordinary performance as this Reverend, mixing perfect comedic timing with a genuine love for helping others in the word of God, continuing the status of one of the stars to look forward having 4 films this year in his repertoire. Throughout the start of the film, he takes more of a protagonist role and continues even in the second half of the film, which gives a fresh breath of air into the franchise.
Apart from the Reverend, a small group referred as “The Flock” in the film are the suspects of the crime. Glenn Close, playing Martha Delacroix, becomes a masterclass in such an interesting role. Delacroix is one of the only helpers of Wicks and is an all-encompassing worker for the institution and a follower of it since it was founded by Wicks’ grandfather. Even standing next to many other individuals, she makes the scene about her and takes the focus from the viewers into this strong-willed follower. The Flock also includes performances from Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner and more.
While not strongly being a pro-religion film, especially with the continuous sarcasm and criticism from our favorite detective Benoit Blanc, the film can get extremely philosophical and thoughtful about what religion can be and what the church can do for someone in need of it. Between the jokes and comedy of the film, at the heart of it there is a strong message about benevolence and kindness, delivered beautifully by O’Connor in multiple monologues and conversations about what it means to be a priest and showing the opposite of the aggressive mentality Wicks had.
Comparing to the other 2 films in this trilogy, “Wake Up Dead Man” improves everything from “Glass Onion,” and could even be standing or surpassing the quality of the first movie “Knives Out.” We can see Johnson grabbing a simple concept of a whodunit and implementing his style in a much more elaborate way, not only staying in a mystery film but adding elements from many different sources, elevating it to another standard. Everything that many people loved about the first one is still present, but it continues to show improvement and cleverness, resulting in a wish for more films at this level of quality to continue being released.
“Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” is now available on limited screens in the world, and will be widely released in Netflix in December 12th and I highly recommend it to anyone reading.
