‘Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery’ review: Daniel Craig returns in crowd-pleasing sequel

Dir/scr: Rian Johnson. US. 144mins

For the third instalment in his Knives Out franchise, writer-director Rian Johnson adds an element of spiritual searching that blends nicely with this sequel’s darker tone. Wake Up Dead Man finds Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc investigating a murder at a small-town parish in which the prime suspect is the church’s troubled new priest. This mystery-comedy is as clever as the previous films, and is bolstered by a graceful performance from series newcomer Josh O’Connor.

As much about the ride as the destination

Live the previous two Knives Out instalments Wake Up Dead Man premieres in Toronto before opening London, and the crowd-pleasing sequel will open in select theatres in the UK and US at the end of November before streaming on Netflix starting December 12. Craig remains the main attraction, but he’s joined this time not just by O’Connor but also Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner and other A-listers. Anyone who liked the earlier chapters will certainly enjoy Wake Up Dead Man, which grapples with faith — whether it be in a god or a redoubtable detective.

O’Connor plays Jud, a priest who is assigned to a shrinking congregation in upstate New York. Jud asserts that God wants His followers to be loving and kind — a hard-earned belief he has developed after previously being a boxer who killed an opponent in the ring — but the church’s megalomaniacal Monsignor Wicks (Brolin) argues that Christians need to be on the attack against a world corrupted by modernity. Wicks quickly turns his loyal parishioners against Jud, and when a shocking murder occurs within the congregation the outsider quickly becomes chief of police Geraldine’s (Kunis) prime suspect. It’s then that Benoit Blanc (Craig) appears on the scene, convinced Jud didn’t commit the crime.

Again paying homage to Agatha Christie, Johnson’s latest assembles yet another starry cast to play colourful characters. Whether it’s Close’s fiercely protective Martha, who has long worked at the church and guarded its secrets, or Renner’s drunken, embittered doctor Nat, who’s still heartbroken over his divorce, Wake Up Dead Man populates the story with potential murderers. But unlike Knives Out and Glass Onion, this third instalment spends a little less time with the ensemble and instead focuses on the relationship between Blanc and Jud, who serves as the detective’s assistant during the investigation — despite himself being a suspect

As much as Johnson intricately plots his whodunit, he’s arguably more invested in Blanc and Jud’s debates about religion. Blanc, a man of logic and science, considers religion to be a fairy tale, but Jud contends that those ancient stories contain crucial lessons about forgiveness, love and empathy. Jud’s shameful past drew him to the Lord, but his occasional flashes of violence and stabs of doubt demonstrate how shaky his faith can be. At the same time, Blanc will face his own dark night of the soul. Normally unerringly convinced of his own brilliance, he is baffled by this murder — even more so when, later in the film, a seemingly impossible act occurs. In his own way, Blanc suffers a crisis of faith.

Amidst Wake Up Dead Man’s more sombre atmosphere and grimmer sense of humour, Craig and O’Connor add additional emotional shading to a film that, like the series as a whole, is still primarily meant to be an entertaining puzzle. O’Connor is particularly good as a man of the cloth who wants to prove his innocence while battling guilt over past mistakes. The rising star has often portrayed soulful, struggling individuals, but rarely has he been given the chance to be funny and charming in a mainstream picture. He also aces the film’s finest moment, which involves Jud remembering how important his calling is — despite Blanc’s smug dismissals of religion.

That welcome thematic depth helps mitigate the inevitable lack of novelty that comes with the third film in a series. Still, credit Johnson for crafting different sorts of whodunits with each instalment, this time drawing from so-called locked-room mysteries while referencing Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre stories and fashioning a resolution that doesn’t feel cheap or preposterous. If the guilty are a little easier to guess in this chapter, by now viewers know that the Knives Out films are as much about the ride as they are the destination. For a picture so much about the fallibility of faith, that’s at least one thing audiences can count on.