The Darkest — And Greatest — Knives Out Movie Yet

Funny thing about whodunits: they don’t necessarily have a lot of meat on the bone. Yes, their twists often lead us through the kind of mental exercise we could never solve alone, but for the most part, the genre indulges in smoke and mirrors. There’s the illusion of substance, of colorful personality, on the surface — but the act of untangling the thread is often more satisfying than the answers we eventually get.

Such has been the paradox (for this writer, at least) behind Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series. The films themselves have delivered one brilliant murder mystery after the next, providing Johnson with a platform to tackle any issue on his mind — from far-right trolls and vacuous billionaires to the “Fandom Menace” that tore his divisive Star Wars project, The Last Jedi, to ribbons. Thanks to the filmmaker’s crackling, jaunty scripts, packed with the kind of joke-a-minute dialogue most can only dream of writing, the Knives Out saga became an unprecedented delight, with Johnson stepping up as our generation’s own Agatha Christie. But look too closely and the illusion shatters, leaving us lip service about eating the rich and championing truth, no matter the cost.

Glass Onion especially felt just as shallow as the one-percenters it aimed to skewer, with Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc practically holding for applause after dragging the latest subject of Johnson’s ire. It was junk food dressed up as class commentary — and for the record, there’s nothing really wrong with that. But it does feel like chump change compared to Wake Up Dead Man, the darkest and perhaps most ideologically heavy entry of the Knives Out saga yet.

After a glitzy trip to a sparkling Greek isle, the Knives Out franchise takes a pendulum swing back to the moody atmosphere that started it all. Wake Up Dead Man plunges giddily into the gothic, rubbing shoulders with religious horror and giallo-inspired iconography. While this murder mystery is a little messier than those that came before, it has something those films occasionally lacked: conviction. With a new scene-stealing partner and a twisty tale disguised as a crisis of faith, Wake Up Dead Man gives us Benoit Blanc at his best — even if he’s on the back foot in ways we’ve never seen before.

Organized religion is the logical next target for Johnson’s sardonic pen: both Knives Out and Glass Onion brushed up against the bitter fruits of our Christian Ethnostate. Dead Man, however, excavates its rotted roots; Johnson gives it his complete focus, making this satire a hell of a lot more genuine than past entries. Benoit, a “proud heretic,” becomes one side of an argument that any lapsed Christian has had with themselves — and also, clearly, Johnson’s own internal monologue. But he also meets his match in Rev. Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), a former boxer who genuinely believes that he can bring the church back from the brink. It’s Jud who leads us — and Benoit — by the hand into this latest unsolvable case, the Good Friday Murder. It’s also Jud who challenges Benoit more than any Knives Out character who’s come before, not through clownlike caricature, but true, earnest empathy.

Craig’s Southern detective doesn’t really appear until the film’s second act, leaving O’Connor — and O’Connor alone — to lay out the pieces of this new puzzle. It’s something of a departure from Knives Out and Glass Onion, which relied on their dysfunctional ensembles to set the scene. But if anyone could hold the reins of such an unweildy mystery, it’s O’Connor’s young priest. Jud is both unbearably innocent and morally unwavering, virtues that come in handy when he’s dispatched to Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, a derelict parish in Chimney Rock, NY. Though this church is one day away from shuttering its doors for good, it’s ruled with an iron fist by its lead pastor, Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). He’s exactly what you’d expect from an antagonist in a Johnson project: he insists on the title of “Monsignor,” not “Father” Wicks, and spews the kind of fire-and-brimstone sermons that attract only the most bigoted and vainglorious.

Wicks is devout in his own twisted way. The son of a “harlot whore” who once desecrated the church in search of a missing fortune, he now dedicates his life to condemning similar iniquity. Wicks plays a kind of game of chicken with his congregation, goading them either to accept his misogynistic, homophobic messaging or take off running for the hills. Those who remain are either too numb to dispute his barrage of lib-owning assaults or too desperate for a miracle to abandon the church. This tight-knit group makes up the list of suspects for the Good Friday Murder. There’s Wicks’ loyal assistant Martha (Glen Close); groundskeeper Samson (Thomas Hayden Church); malcontent lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington) and her adopted son, politician-influencer Cy (Daryl McCormack); down-on-his-luck doctor Nat (Jeremy Renner); paranoid sci-fi writer Lee (Andrew Scott); and Simone (Cailee Spaeny), a cellist whose donations have been keeping the church afloat.

Jud, of course, rounds out the group… and as the resident outsider, he’s also the easiest to frame. Once Benoit swaggers into town — armed with a trove of fantastic three-piece suits — he’s tasked with sussing out Jud’s “young, dumb, and full of Christ” schtick. (And yes, that’s a line Jud actually uses to describe himself.) After just one conversation, it’s clear Jud isn’t only talking the talk

Though Wake Up Dead Man does occasionally force us to question whether Jud is truly innocent, there’s no doubt that he believes in the church’s ideal role as the “salt and light” of the world. He’ll debate anyone, Benoit especially, about the “true church” and how it can be restored. As they labor to solve the Good Friday Murder through its many twists and turns, he even forces Benoit to reckon with the vices of his own practice. We’ve had a front-row seat to the detective’s crusade, and the gleeful triumph that comes with unveiling the truth. We cheered when his condemnations struck a chord, but we also cringed when they rang hollow. Through Jud, Dead Man confronts Benoit’s unique brand of justice — and the hypocrisy therein, head-on. Seeking out the truth and punishing the wicked is an admirable pursuit, but at what point does it cross a line? We should all believe in the triumph of good over evil, but what separates Benoit’s intentions from Wicks’ own delusions of grandeur, beyond his own conviction?

Johnson is eager to pick at that tangled knot until he finds the common thread. It makes Wake Up Dead Man the meatiest — and perhaps even the best — Knives Out entry thus far, even if, at times, it bites off more than it can chew. Not every aspect of this mystery is fleshed out as it ought to be, but with plenty of style and specificity, it’s impossible not to praise Johnson for delivering another infectious chapter of this anthology.

Wake Up Dead Man premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opens in select theaters on November 26 before streaming on Netflix on December 12.