Wake Up Dead Man (A Knives Out Mystery) (2025)

Review: written Jan 2025

Deliciously entertaining and sharper than ever

Rian Johnson has churned out another thoroughly enjoyable whodunnit. This series of movies starring Daniel Craig evokes the same humour and Agatha-Christie-esque plots as the Peter Ustinov 70’s movies once dead. They are designed to be event movies – a star studded cast, amiable and entertaining sleuth, and expertly mixed concoction of death, humour, drama and human foibles.

This time round, the drama unfolds in a small town parish church, where a young priest (Josh O’Connor) is sent as assistant pastor and soon clashes with the mercurial and unorthodox Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin), and his motley parishioners. When the Monsignor is then victim of a seemingly impossible murder, the community and congregation are convinced the young newcomer is the obvious culprit. Enter Daniel Craig’s flamboyant private detective, come to aid the local police chief (Mila Kunis).

With a cast of suspects including Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott and Thomas Haden Church, the ingredients are served for a delicious treat of mayhem and murder.

While Craig is clearly relishing his role and settling into it like a well worn suit, the movie is stolen by a terrific performance by Josh O’Connor. He is the soul and heart of the movie, and it is his faith we are led to be sympathetic to, rather than Benoit Blancs atheism. In a movie that drips black humour and embraces a gothic exaggerated style bordering on histrionic, he keeps the movie grounded and the audience engaged.

Likewise, Rian Johnson has achieved something rare – a second sequel that possibly even surpasses and certainly matches the first two, and yet embraces a shift in tone and has a few social comments on religion and faith mixed in for those that want to see it. Beautifully shot, and with clever photography, and with the humour giving laugh out loud moments but never out of context or distracting from the drama. Many other movies have failed to walk this challenging tightrope of tone, but Johnson somehow manages.

The end result is a thoroughly entertaining concoction, that feels like a movie from a bygone era – in a good way.