Whether intentional or not but having made three movies in which Daniel Craig leads an all-star cast as the private detective Benoit Blanc, it seems that Rian Johnson is reacting what Kenneth Branagh is doing with his film series in which he plays Hercule Poirot. Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and A Haunting in Venice are efficiently well-made whodunits, they fully embrace the classic source material by Agatha Christie and thus don’t do anything groundbreaking with narratives that have been adapted countless times.
With Knives Out and Glass Onion, Johnson is fully aware of the mechanics of the Agatha Christie whodunnit and thus his stories are about taking apart the tropes of the genre and putting it back together where the twisting and turning isn’t that obvious. Much like Branagh’s last Poirot installment, Johnson’s latest feature Wake Up Dead Man goes into Gothic territory, but can it strike that same chord as its two predecessors?
This time, the story centers Reverend Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), a former boxer turned Catholic priest, is sent to upstate New York after punching a rude deacon. Assigned to a church led by Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), Jud sees the influence that Wicks has on the churchgoers, which is aggressive and somewhat toxic. As tensions rise within the community, murder occurs, and thus it is up to Detective Blanc to solve the mystery.
It is worth noting that despite getting first billing and playing the humorous detective that must solve the murder mystery, Craig as Blanc has never really been the main character across these movies, and that is definitely the case in Wake Up Dead Man. While Craig continues to be exceptional in a role that blurs the line between the dramatic and the comedic, it is really John O’Connor’s film.
Serving as the narrator, we see O’Connor in an incredible performance of a young priest trying to find meaning in his current state after what something horrible happened during his sports-based past. As well as fitting nicely into a tone where things can go from funny to intense, O’Connor delivers some of the most moving scenes that we’ve have seen from the entire trilogy, most notably one sequence when Jud gives a blessing over the phone with someone in need of emotional guidance.
As tradition in Johnson’s detective series, there is a supporting cast surrounding Craig and get to show off a nasty side. While there are exceptions to the cast such as Mila Kunis’ Police Chief Geraldine Scott who serves as a fun third wheel alongside the two leads, you have other performers like Josh Brolin, Jeremy Renner and Kerry Washington bring that unhinged element in how they their characters that anyone of them can break to doing horrific things. However, whereas its two predecessors reveled hard on themes of classism and greed – both of which are still apparent here – Wake Up Dead Man shows how one, if not many, can be compelled by their own religious faith. Whilst you can view the film’s religious themes through a cynical view, Johnson doesn’t talk down to those with such beliefs.
While the works of the aforementioned Agatha Christie remains a recurring influence – and is even referenced in the narrative – Johnson aims for something tonally and thematically different than before, leaning more into the Gothic fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, as if the central setting of the church couldn’t more obvious. While Wake Up Dead Man overstays its welcome with a running time of 144 minutes, Johnson relishes the Gothic flourish whilst never forgetting the joy of watching a Knives Out installment that plays with time and perspective, thanks to Bob Ducsay’s sharp editing, creating a cat-and-mouse chase that is unpredictable.
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