Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is the unimpressive third film in the franchise that stars Daniel Craig as private detective Benoit Blanc. Rian Johnson wrote and directed this somewhat lackluster sequel. Daniel Craig returns as the enigmatic Benoit Blanc.
More big Hollywood names are in this case. Josh Brolin is the one who gets knifed in the back as Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, a rather fiery and ferocious church leader with a not so holy agenda. Josh O’ Conner, Glenn Close, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Adam Scott, and Jeffrey Wright are also included in the cast. So, there is a lot of talented and prominent names here whose talents are just wasted.
Benoit Blanc is asked to help out in investigating the murder of a monsignor who was stabbed in a storage near the pulpit of a church while services were being done. Blanc finds a peculiar group of suspects and is assisted by a young priest who was once a boxer. Suspicion falls on the young priest, and Blanc is not so sure he will be able to solve the case.
First of all, Johnson lets his political preferences shine throughout here in the writing of his script. He just couldn’t stay neutral on matters of religion or much else. That’s to be expected with most of the sludge coming out of Hollywood these days.
The story was not that interesting, and the film ran too long for the genre. Only a few of the cast members had interesting roles. Benoit Blanc had nothing new to show his audience. Daniel Craig was fine in the role, I suppose, but he was not as compelling as usual.
Adam Scott, who is best known as Jim Moriarty in Sherlock, was sort of fun to watch. A few other cast members had enough talent to sometimes be interesting.
Overall, the mystery itself was not that interesting. I didn’t really care about the murder of this monsignor. The film was obviously just a venting session against religion or any conservative viewpoint, which is to be expected these days from Hollywood, but Johnson just failed when it came to clever subtlety in the writing.
The movie still isn’t what I call terrible because the cast is just good enough to keep it within the range of mediocre. There was enough to represent basically my genre where I can’t say that I absolutely hate this film, but there were facets that were just annoying and unnecessary.
I will acknowledge there was some redeeming qualities toward the end. Johnson didn’t quite veer off into some overly heretical road, but he did enough limit my enjoyment of what could have been a compelling murder mystery.
Unfortunately, aspects of my personality will likely compel me to keep an eye out to see if another installment is forthcoming, and I do find the lead character Benoit Blanc to still be somewhat interesting. Better luck next time, guys!
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