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Wake Up Dead Man

Wake Up Dead Man (without a comma to be seen) is the third Benoit Blanc mystery, written and directed by Rian Johnson. Daniel Craig stars again as the Foghorn Leghorn-twanging detective but he's a touch overshadowed here by the 'supporting' cast, namely Josh O'Connor as young priest, Jud (Judas anyone?) Duplenticy, Josh Brolin as Monsignor Wicks and Glenn Close as church dogsbody Martha. Though it seems O'Connor is the new big thing, especially in indie films, I find him about as engaging as the weekly supermarket trip. In saying that, he's a pretty good foil for the rest of the characters, who have charisma by the bucketload.

Blanc only appears around the start of act two, after all the set-up has been dealt with, in a very similar fashion to the previous films, Knives Out and Glass Onion. We gather that somebody has been killed on Good Friday, and the format for this exposition is a letter that Blanc asks Jud to write to him. This works well enough, (Keigo Higashino even got a whole novel out of it with Malice) though Blanc's reasoning stretches credulity a touch.

Close is excellent, Brolin too (his confessional stories are hilariously awkward). Andrew Scott, Jeremy Renner, Cailee Spaeny, Kerry Washington, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church and Jeffrey Wright are all on song. The writing of these films is really the star but without actors like these to pull off the lines, the films in Johnson's Blanc series wouldn't be half as much fun as they are.

Brief outline then - Jud punches a fellow priest and so is banished to sleepy little Chimney Rock, where the local parish is losing its flock, all due to the behaviour of the head priest there, Monsignor Wicks. Jud is a thoroughly nice bloke, and baulks at Wicks' methods of preaching (let's just say he's a bigoted prick). His cosy group of regulars are wary of Jud the interloper and, at the same time, have problems of their own - making every one of them a suspect come murder time.

There are false dawns, red herrings, askance glances, and twisty plot devices - exactly what you want from this kind of clever-clogs film. Minor issues regarding the religious focus and the damp lead actor don't really detract too much from this fun ensemble piece. For me, it's better than Glass Onion but not as good as Knives Out. Here's hoping this becomes a long-running franchise.

Wake Up Dead Man is still playing at cinemas for a short while but then reverts to Netflix from Dec 12th.

See also:

Knives Out regenerated the 'whodunit' in 2019, and if you fancy a less light-hearted priestly thriller, you can't go wrong with Jean-Jacques Annaud's fantastic The Name of the Rose (1986).

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