Vague Visages’ Wake Up Dead Man review contains minor spoilers. Rian Johnson’s 2025 movie features Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor and Glenn Close. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

It’s fascinating to look back at the reception that greeted Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017) now that American filmmaker Rian Johnson has completed a very different franchise trilogy of his own while sticking to his guns and subsequently becoming more universally beloved. Since 2019, each of his Knives Out murder mysteries have comedically parodied different corners of Donald Trump-era American society as subtle as a sledgehammer. Just as The Last Jedi challenges viewers, Johnson’s whodunnit film series questions the audience’s affinity for the detective sub-genre, with a reverence and literacy about what works best while subverting tropes. Wake Up Dead Man, the third and potentially final installment in the Benoit Blanc saga, is the boldest example of this.

In Wake Up Dead Man, Johnson keeps his star detective away from the drama for almost the entire first hour, resulting in what initially appears to be the filmmaker’s most obvious Trump parable; however, the film ultimately becomes an earnest exploration of faith — a conceit which complicates the very foundations of the whodunnit sub-genre. The church has been the setting for many a classic murder mystery — several of which are directly invoked as critical plot points by Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) himself in Wake Up Dead Man — but the tension between this belief system and a narrative which requires concrete truth has seldom been held under the microscope. Johnson’s 2025 film is a devilishly funny social satire, even if it obviously critiques right-wing Christians who don’t understand the core principles of their religion’s figurehead. Wake Up Dead Man transforms into something more impactful by sincerely and non-judgmentally attempting to grapple with faith from an atheist’s perspective.

Wake Up Dead Man Review: Related — Review: Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘One Battle After Another’

Following Challengers (2024), Josh O’Connor gives another “movie star” performance as Father Jud Duplenticy, a former boxer who turned towards Catholicism after killing an opponent in the ring with his bare fists. After punching a fellow priest, he’s shipped to a parish in upstate New York, where he serves under Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), who speaks in apocalyptic tones via fire-and-brimstone sermons about the need to “fight” for freedoms. They often directly target members of the congregation, and weaponize secrets that Wicks heard in confessions. Father Duplenticy rhapsodizes about his late mother, who is labeled a “whore” singularly motivated by money. Jud was saved by his faith, and he makes no secret in describing Jefferson’s interpretation of it as a “cancer”; however, his murderous past makes him the number one suspect when somebody in the church dies in what Benoit Blanc dubs an “impossible crime.”

Wake Up Dead Man Review: Related — Review: Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Challengers’ Is a Highbrow Music Video Experience That Doesn’t Owe You Anything

As with all Knives Out movies, speaking in plot specifics when it comes to the case itself spoils the fun. Similarly, one doesn’t need to indulge in discussing the victim, the murder or any of the varying motives to appreciate the richness of the text. Jefferson may scan best as a Trump analogy, as his anger and crassness bears more than a little resemblance the current U.S. president, but Brolin never resorts to any similarities in performance. He becomes more of a stand-in for the Emperor’s New Clothes brand of a far-right international strongman, whose strength comes not from words or policy, but by honing in on specific grievances that can wield together a faithful, if ideologically incoherent, coalition. This is how a former sci-fi author turned Substack blogger (Andrew Scott as Lee Ross) and a failed republican senator who makes vlogs with titles like “Finding the GOD in DOGE” (Daryl McCormack as Cy Draven) can share pews with a doctor battling alcoholism (Jeremy Renner as Nat Sharp), a cellist who hopes faith will help her overcome her disability (Cailee Spaeny as Simone Vivane) and a metropolitan lawyer (Kerry Washington as Vera Draven). The whodunnit sub-genre relies on its cast of suspects being at ideological odds, but Johnson makes the rare attempt to question what underlying ideology it is that brought these people together and keeps them there; he doesn’t hide his scorn for the most unrepentantly right-wing of them all, but he does display an empathy for those who don’t see how their faith is being weaponized by a power hungry figure. It somehow doesn’t compromise the satire, or make the film thematically toothless and, heaven forbid, “centrist” in its understanding of why people in desperate situations would put their faith in the wrong places.

Wake Up Dead Man Review: Related — Review: Zach Cregger’s ‘Weapons’

This is only scratching the surface of why Wake Up Dead Man is a bolder exploration of faith than the plot-oriented sub-genre would typically cater for, with O’Connor’s reverend also existing within a moral gray area, rather than being a simplistic counterpoint to Brolin’s antagonist. He too is filled with an anger his devotion to Jesus Christ can’t keep at bay, his emotions far easier to manipulate through his own interpretations of right and wrong than he would like to believe. In contrast, Glenn Close’s Martha Delacroix, a devout follower of the Monsignor, appears to understand her faith is bigger than the one man she idolizes. What makes religion such a perennially interesting topic, even to heathens like myself, is that there are no concrete interpretations, even within ideologically aligned wings of the church; it’s a tension which lends itself nicely to a metaphor for the MAGA-fied Republican Party but resonates the most in Wake up Dead Man when taken at face value. As viewed through the eyes of an atheist detective, these subtle differences in belief complicate a case directly lifted from a murder mystery novel in the church’s book club reading list (no, I won’t reveal which one) that in any other circumstance would be open and shut. It leads to perhaps the messiest deconstruction of a case within the franchise to date, but it’s also the most coherent, as Johnson outlines the stark differences in character principles — a fittingly unruly third act for a story about these inherent conflicts in faith.

Wake Up Dead Man Review: Related — Review: Cosima Spender’s ‘Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe’

As with his heroine in The Last Jedi, Johnson adds depth to his southern detective lead by peeling away layers of artifice established by the prior stories, the later acts resonant because of the filmmaker’s sincere attempts to respect the beliefs of people who follow a religion he finds hateful. It’s a bold re-contextualization of the joyously cartoonish lead, earnestly grounding him within a story about faith’s many contradictions, and without watering down his charming idiosyncrasies. It is, in short, everything you want from a Knives Out movie precisely because it has no interest in singing from the same hymn sheet — the boldest subversion of murder mystery tropes yet, disguised as comforting business as usual.

Alistair Ryder (@YesitsAlistair) is a film and TV critic based in Manchester, England. By day, he interviews the great and the good of the film world for Zavvi, and by night, he criticizes their work as a regular reviewer at outlets including The Film Stage and Looper. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

Wake Up Dead Man Review: Related — They Know Not What They Do: The Passion of the Christ in Franco Zeffirelli’s ‘Jesus of Nazareth’