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

Writer’s note: The second paragraph of this article (just below the first image) contains a basic outline of the film’s premise. There are no spoilers that weren’t already inferred in the film’s own trailer. However, if you want to completely avoid potential spoilers, skip over the second paragraph.

It’s every Hollywood studio’s dream to have a successful film franchise that can keep running forever. Harry Potter kept the lights on at Warner Brothers for 10 years, but that’s all over now. Disney plans to keep making billions off of Star Wars and Marvel movies until the end of time, but even those loyal fans are growing tired. Therefore, the tricky part is creating a series which won’t become stale after a while. Love him or hate him, Director Rian Johnson found a solution to this problem, and it’s a solution which kept authors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie in business forever. Namely, Johnson’s Knives Out franchise features a series of completely different mystery thrillers, all of which just so happen to star the same detective. As long as audiences never tire of a good detective thriller, we could very well see Knives Out outlive us all. Thus, we now come to the third entry, Wake Up Dead Man (2025).

We are introduced to Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), a former boxer turned Catholic priest who is appointed assistant pastor at a rural parish in upstate New York. Jud begins to form a rivalry with Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), who’s controversially aggressive preaching has scared away many churchgoers, while at the same time keeping his most loyal followers in constant fear. Some of those local parishioners include Wicks’ right-hand woman Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), Dr. Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), lawyer Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), her adopted son Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack), bestselling author Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), disabled concert cellist Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), and groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church). After a particularly confrontational sermon, Wicks enters a small locked room alone, but is found dead with a knife in his back once the door opens. Given their antagonistic relationship, Jud is immediately branded as the prime suspect, but world renowned private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) thinks there’s more to this locked room mystery.

At this point, the original Knives Out (2019) is widely considered a classic, praised for its flawless script, subversive story, and all-star cast. It’s rare to see original, mid-budget blockbusters these days, let alone 2019. Johnson gave us a refreshing experience, as it was a complete story which didn’t require a sequel. However, Johnson and Netflix committed to delivering more Benoit Blanc adventures, immediately following up with the somewhat entertaining but dramatically inferior Glass Onion (2022). The pieces were in place, and it was a harmless viewing experience, but the magic was gone, resulting in a sequel which wasn’t nearly as interesting or memorable as the first. As such, expectations for Wake Up Dead Man were high, as many wondered if it would match the original film’s charm.

The key to a good mystery is to hide all the clues in plain sight, giving the viewer a fair chance at solving it. That being said, those clues also need to be hidden well enough that the viewer won’t actually see them, so that they can be shocked by the third act reveals. The idea is to make the viewer want to rewatch the film, and on that second watch they will think “damn, I can’t believe I missed that”. Knives Out succeeded greatly at this task, but Glass Onion fumbled the ball, as there’s no way the viewer could’ve figured out the plot unless Blanc explained it (a boring experience for a detective story). Thankfully, Wake Up Dead Man is far closer to the former, with all the clues nicely layered throughout the film. Johnson’s script constantly keeps us wanting to know more, and it seems relatively smart once the clues come together. Johnson leaves no hanging threads, ensuring that every line of dialogue, every plot turn, and every flashback has relevance to the final reveal. Granted, many of the twists are easy to predict, but that doesn’t make them any less enjoyable.

Speaking of easy predictions, there’s absolutely no way anyone won’t immediately guess who’s the mastermind behind the murder. Yes, Johnson packs these films with a whole host of A-list actors, preventing us from being able to say “well it’s obviously the famous face”. Regardless, it’s still a little too obvious as to who is pulling the strings. This isn’t a total deal breaker, as the mystery itself is still something to discover as the story unfolds. We may know who’s behind this crime, but how they did it and why remains unclear until the end. In this case, Wake Up Dead Man is a prime example of the phrase, “it’s about the journey, not the destination”. That journey being a slightly new path for this series, focusing on thematically layered conversations instead of nail biting tension.

Those conversations in question centre almost exclusively on critiques of religion, and moral righteousness. Up until now, these Knives Out films have been about class divides and wealth privilege, so it’s nice to see Johnson aim his societal analysis towards something else. This new narrative focus does result in Wake Up Dead Man having a slightly different tone, one that’s darker and more emotive. There’s still plenty of the series’ trademark snarky comedy, but Johnson can’t help but be a little more philosophical with Wake Up Dead Man’s faith based discussion. This also allows Johnson to include interesting visual flourishes, creatively displaying the film’s themes through cinematography, colour and lighting. Wake Up Dead Man is another showcase of Johnson’s directorial prowess, which remains his greatest strength as a filmmaker.

Johnson’s passion for his material is what makes Wake Up Dead Man as enjoyable as it is, which is a good thing considering he can be overindulgent at times. Specifically, Wake Up Dead Man is a great mystery story which could’ve taken under two hours to tell, yet Johnson pushes the runtime to two and half hours. To be clear, the film is expertly edited and paced from scene to scene, so you don’t notice that it’s overstaying its welcome until deep into the third act. It was probably hard to find places to cut down the film’s length, given the amount of characters needing to be developed, plot threads needing to be unraveled, and twists needing to be revealed. That last point being most detrimental to the length, as you do eventually tire of Benoit Blanc’s prolonged explanations, regardless of how infectiously silly Daniel Craig’s hilarious southern accent becomes.

Despite its defects, Wake Up Dead Man is a worthy entry in this Knives Out franchise, likely giving Johnson and Netflix confidence in the series’ longevity. At this point, it’s hard to imagine any of these sequels ever matching up to the 2019 original, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to glean plenty of entertainment from this franchise before it one day concludes.

7/10

Best way to watch it: After Sunday Mass (if that’s your thing).