Writing murder mysteries requires considerable ingenuity, especially if you are to do it again and again, and again. Even Agatha Christie, the undisputed exemplar of the genre, did not bat a 100/100, and had lulls of inspiration, leading to competent but less than extraordinary offerings.
Such is the case with Rian Johnson, a dependably talented yarn-sprinner of scales large and small. Even when he isn't hitting home runs, he produces something indubitably watchable and entertaining, and likely more than satisfying for a majority of the audience. Wake Up Dead Man, the third entry in his monumentally popular Benoit Blanc-Knives Out series, will tickle viewers in theaters and on Netflix during the holiday season. What Johnson withholds in innovation, he more than makes up for with political commentary.
Fasten your seat belts, Johnson is about to toss a poisoned bonbon among families of mixed political persuasion that gather together to celebrate the holidays -- and watch movies together. While the original Knives Out (2019) already lampooned conservative concerns, Wake Up Dead Man is a frontal assault on the very edicts of MAGA, rendered via devastating mockery by Rian Johnson.
Josh Brolin's cultist priest is nakedly a Trump stand-in. And Cy Draven's (Daryl McCormack) microphone + iPhone-wielding influencer is a send-up of Charlie Kirk or any number of right-wing rabble-rousers. Wake Up Dead Man is no political sermon, though; the commentary is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, meaning you don't need to engage with it if you don't want to, as there are acres of criss-crossing plots to keep you occupied.
Wake Up Dead Man concerns the 'Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude' parish. The principals are Brolin's head priest, church employee Martha (Glenn Close), and new arrival assistant priest Jud (Josh O'Connell). Among the regular churchgoers are the aforementioned Cy, his sister, lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), a doctor (Jeremy Renner), a novelist (Andrew Scott), a cellist (Cailee Spaeny) and a groundskeeper (Thomas Haden Church).
A murder is committed, everybody else is a suspect, you know the rest. More details of the plot need not be recounted, as that is among the joys of the Knives Out movies, or rather, any whodunnit. There are many reveals and reversals, some more pleasurable than others. But the third entry is set apart from the others in several ways, not all of them welcome.
The Knives Out movies are essentially modern incarnations of the star-studded Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov Christie adaptations from the 1970s and 1980s. They are, in essence, ensemble movies, and Knives Out and Glass Onion were that. Knives Out 3 could be seen as a character study - of John O'Connell's character rather than Daniel Craig's, to the surprise of many in the audience.
This is O'Connell's film through and through, and the cast even acknowledged this to be the case at the press conference, much more than Knives Out was Ana De Armas' film, or Glass Onion was Janelle Monae's. To such a degree, there is little room for the rest of the cast to shine in Wake Up Dead Man.
Craig, Close and Brolin do get meaty parts. But the rest, specifically Washington, Renner, Scott, Spaney, and Haden Church, are essentially reduced to background players if not outright cameos. Mila Kunis' cop and McCormack get more to do, but aren't able to rise above their underwritten parts.
This circumstance might dampen or at least alter the pleasures of this Knives Out entry, as when murder(s) happen, there is a disconnect from the proceedings. as the characters are church-wafer-thin. Instead, for much of his impact, Johnson relies on an elaborate backstory about the founding of the church.
To a degree, Johnson's Knives Out movies aren't really whodunnits. 'What actually happened' is revealed a third of the way through in Knives Out, about halfway through in Glass Onion, and much later in Wake Up Dead Man. But while the first film was like a Colombo procedural and the second one a holiday movie enigma, the third entry is more akin to an Edgar Allan Poe story. Johnson has always emphasized comedy and satire as his primary concerns. He took aim at immigration fears in the first one, and lampooned billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk in the second one. Wake Up Dead Man is a Trump and MAGA takedown, as discussed above.
Johnson also has complete control over this property, having delivered two hits and Academy Award-nominated screenplays. He is the single auteur, and it shows sometimes in that no one can tell him 'No'. Wake Up Dead Man takes a while to get going, and Benoit Blanc enters nearly an hour into a lengthy movie. Wake Up Dead Man will have several recommendations, but brevity won't be among them.
Will there be Knives Out 4 and 5? Without question. These are competent divertissements, though Johnson would do well to balance his commentary with purer whodunnit thrills in future installments.