{"id":594068,"date":"2025-11-26T02:23:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T02:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/594068\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T02:23:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T02:23:14","slug":"wake-up-dead-man-movie-review-knives-way-the-hell-out-london-film-festival-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/594068\/","title":{"rendered":"Wake Up Dead Man movie review: knives way the hell out (London Film Festival 2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"

So much death in the world. So much intentional killing. Of innocents, of bystanders, of \u2014 hell \u2014 our entire biosphere (in progress). And yet the cozy murder mystery remains immensely appealing. Cozy murders! We stupid upright apes invented a storytelling genre of proper and polite homicide, and what does that say about us? We\u2019re civilized people here, thank you very much, but please bring on the untimely demise of some miserable bastard who was desperately asking for it, thank you very much.<\/p>\n

So it is with Wake Up Dead Man, the third installment of writer-director Rian Johnson\u2019s deliciously retro whodunnit series. Much more so than in the previous two films \u2014 Knives Out<\/a> and Glass Onion \u2014 the death that kicks it all off is one that it\u2019s difficult to mourn too greatly: that of Catholic monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin: Dune: Part Two<\/a>, Avengers: Endgame<\/a>), a nasty fire-and-brimstone priest who harangues his flock from the pulpit and ends up with a well-deserved knife in the back in a little room off the altar in his church in the middle of a service.<\/p>\n

\"WakeMonsignor Wicks\u2019s Christianity is less muscular than it is mean-spirited.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a classic \u201cimpossible\u201d murder of the locked-room sort: Wicks was alone and all the potential suspects were sitting in the pews watching and waiting from afar. Only one man can unravel this conundrum: peerless private eye Benoit Blanc.<\/p>\n

Johnson ramps up the cinematic fun he\u2019s having here by seemingly asking us how long he can keep his famous detective out of his grimly beguiling famous-detective romp and still keep us intrigued. (Perhaps this is why the movie is bafflingly subtitled, as Glass Onion also was, \u201cA Knives Out Mystery\u201d and not \u201cA Benoit Blanc Mystery.\u201d) And even though it\u2019s now clear that Johnson has, with Blanc, created perhaps the most memorable original new movie character in decades, the surprisingly delightful answer is \u201cquite a long while.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is because our introduction to the story comes via Wicks\u2019s new assistant priest, young Father Jud Duplenticy, who is played by the marvelous Josh O\u2019Connor. O\u2019Connor (Lee<\/a>, Emma.<\/a>) has been riveting onscreen since his breakthrough in 2017\u2019s God\u2019s Own Country<\/a>; he\u2019s an actor who had always combined canny intelligence with still-waters emotion, but here he is suddenly also funny, in a way that cleverly limns Duplenticy\u2019s fury with a frustratingly unjust world. As we discover, 45 minutes into the film when Blanc at last appears onscreen, everything that\u2019s come before is Duplenticy\u2019s explanation to Blanc of what has transpired in his sleepy little upstate\u2013New York town in the runup to Wicks\u2019s murder and why the young priest called Blanc in. O\u2019Connor is so charmingly exasperated with his situation that we forget we came here for Blanc, though he\u2019s later a perfect Watson-esque foil and assistant to Blanc.<\/p>\n

\"WakeAbsolutely everyone is a suspect\u2026<\/p>\n

Ah, but Blanc! Daniel Craig (No Time to Die<\/a>, Logan Lucky<\/a>) is arguably even more responsible than Johnson for creating the unforgettably droll detective, and he once again is clearly relishing being allowed to indulge such a meaty yet enigmatic character. The arrival of Blanc, a self-proclaimed \u201cproud heretic\u201d who immediately pontificates on the nature and purpose of religion, throws into relief the utter shitshow that is bubbling beneath the surface of this town and Wicks\u2019s small congregation.<\/p>\n

But Johnson\u2019s work is a marvel as well, doubling down on his uncanny ability to make films that feel familiar and fresh at the same time. With Knives Out he was goofing around with both the Agatha Christie\u2013style whodunnit and the star-studded blockbusters of the 1970s (not just Christie-adjacent thrillers but corny larks like Airport). But now he has to make his own series different enough to captivate us once again while also necessarily scratching the cinematic itch he\u2019s fostered in us over the two previous films. And so Wake Up leans into the gothic like the series hasn\u2019t before \u2014 there\u2019s some unsettling luridness at work here \u2014 and is more obvious and much more churlish about that aforementioned bubbling shitshow being a microcosm of American society at large in the 2020s.<\/p>\n

\"WakeTFW your Watson is becoming a pain in the ass\u2026<\/p>\n

Wicks bears a pointed resemblance to Donald Trump, you see, not least because Daryl McCormack\u2019s (Twisters<\/a>, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande<\/a>) local YouTuber and politician wannabe had been pushing him to run for office, what with all Wicks\u2019s horrific ideas about how to save the nation from itself. Andrew Scott\u2019s (Denial<\/a>, Swallows and Amazons<\/a>) science-fiction writer has gotten lost down conspiracy-theory rabbit holes, reason giving way to delusion. Stressed-out professionals come in the form of Jeremy Renner\u2019s (The House<\/a>, Arrival<\/a>) doctor and Kerry Washington\u2019s (Cars 3<\/a>, Django Unchained<\/a>) lawyer. Cailee Spaeny (Civil War<\/a>, On the Basis of Sex<\/a>) as a cellist no longer able to perform because of a unspecified disability hails from the younger generation society is failing. Glenn Close\u2019s (The Girl with All the Gifts<\/a>, Warcraft<\/a>) church administrator and militant God-botherer, along with her partner, Thomas Haden Church\u2019s (Hellboy<\/a>, Daddy\u2019s Home<\/a>) totally unbothered church groundskeeper, represent the aggressively loud religious minority steamrolling a secular majority. Any one of them could be guilty of murder\u2026 but they\u2019re all cogs in the hot-button grindstone of sorry modern Americana on display as well as victims of \u2014 and sometimes willing participants in \u2014 the blistering stew of bigotry, misogyny, and greed they\u2019re all simmering in. (The wonderful cast also features Mila Kunis [A Bad Moms Christmas<\/a>, Jupiter Ascending<\/a>] as the local sheriff skeptical of Blanc\u2019s talents and annoyed by his presence, and Jeffrey Wright [The Batman<\/a>, Game Night<\/a>] as the higher-up priest who sends Duplenticy into town just in time for this circus.)<\/p>\n

Still, the popcorn pleasures of the series remain intact \u2014 Johnson even drops in overt references to Scooby-Doo! \u2014 and our genteel bloodlust gets a salacious workout. When is the next Benoit Blanc mystery coming?<\/p>\n

more films like this:<\/b>
\u2022 Death at a Funeral<\/a> [Prime US<\/a> | Prime UK<\/a> | Apple TV US<\/a>]
\u2022 Murder by Death [Prime US<\/a> | Prime UK<\/a> | Apple TV<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So much death in the world. So much intentional killing. Of innocents, of bystanders, of \u2014 hell \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[99272,52400,100293,186842,748,139181,20111,139182,186843,32,393,110197,139183,4884,186844,32909,30411,34781,30602,186845,257,114328,186846,93955,186847,16,15,186848,1737],"class_list":{"0":"post-594068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-agatha-christie","9":"tag-airport","10":"tag-andrew-scott","11":"tag-benoit-blanc","12":"tag-britain","13":"tag-cailee-spaeny","14":"tag-daniel-craig","15":"tag-daryl-mccormack","16":"tag-death-at-a-funeral","17":"tag-donald-trump","18":"tag-england","19":"tag-glass-onion","20":"tag-glenn-close","21":"tag-great-britain","22":"tag-jeffrey-wright","23":"tag-jeremy-renner","24":"tag-josh-brolin","25":"tag-josh-oconnor","26":"tag-kerry-washington","27":"tag-knives-out","28":"tag-london","29":"tag-mila-kunis","30":"tag-murder-by-death","31":"tag-rian-johnson","32":"tag-thomas-haden-church","33":"tag-uk","34":"tag-united-kingdom","35":"tag-wake-up-dead-man","36":"tag-youtube"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115613624532322628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}