'Wake Up Dead Man' review: Daniel Craig and Josh O’Connor thrive in the best ‘Knives Out’ yet

Courtesy of Netflix

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Okay, I am going to say something that might get me cancelled in certain corners of the internet, but I have never been the biggest proponent of the “Knives Out” franchise. It is not that the films are incompetent or poorly made. It is that their twee sense of humor, predictable narrative tricks, and aggressively smug tone have rarely done much for me. “Knives Out” felt serviceable but forgettable, while “Glass Onion” doubled down on the same impulses, only elevated by the genuinely impressive dual performance from Janelle Monáe.

Now comes writer-director Rian Johnson’s third entry, “Wake Up Dead Man,” which once again finds Daniel Craig’s Southern, Hercule Poirot inspired Benoit Blanc dropped into another self consciously twisty whodunit. This time, though, the film actually has something more substantial on its mind. It adheres to the franchise formula, but it tilts toward a graver, more introspective register. “Wake Up Dead Man” flirts with existential questions about faith, purpose, and identity, and it finds surprising weight in the idea of extracting meaning from spiritual and emotional collapse.

The biggest jolt of energy comes from Josh O’Connor, who serves as a loose, off-kilter foil to Blanc. He plays Father Jud Duplenticy, a displaced and volatile priest with a fragile moral compass and a parish overflowing with secrets. In a smart shakeup of the series’ formula, he effectively becomes a kind of theological sidekick to Blanc, giving the film a grounded, human center it has been missing.

Blanc, an avowed atheist despite being raised Catholic, arrives to investigate a murder at a rural church in upstate New York, a setting that visibly disarms him. The victim is Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, played with snarling, almost operatic intensity by Josh Brolin, who continues an impressively ferocious late-career run. The primary suspect is Father Jud, who had grown increasingly hostile toward the Monsignor’s unorthodox sermons and manipulative control over the congregation. What follows is the most thematically coherent case the series has offered yet, pushing Blanc into spiritual and emotional territory he is clearly unprepared to navigate.

The suspect list is as stacked and theatrical as one would expect from this franchise, but here it actually feels purposeful rather than decorative. The Monsignor’s inner circle operates like a congregation of true believers, their devotion tipping into something uncomfortably cult-like the closer they orbit his influence. Among them are Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), a flailing science fiction novelist desperate to break out beyond a shrinking audience; Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), a wheelchair bound cellist with a simmering, tightly wound fury; Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), a high powered lawyer frustratingly sidelined by the script despite her presence; Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), a dry drunk therapist barely holding the seams of his personal life together; and Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), the church’s steel spined housekeeper and the Monsignor’s most devout loyalist, who is quietly admired by the weary, watchful groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church). Every one of them has a motive, and for once the film earns the weight of that suspicion.

This is where the franchise finally feels alive again. Previous installments were carried almost entirely by tone and casting, often at the expense of coherent storytelling. “Wake Up Dead Man” gives Johnson his sharpest script of the trio, peppered with pointed, timely satire without feeling exhausted by it. A running gag involving the acronym PENO, short for Priest in Name Only, lands with a sharper bite than the series’ usual brand of winking commentary, because it is actually anchored to character and theme.

That said, the film is not immune to the franchise’s chronic problem. The plotting still strains credibility, and the mechanics of the mystery occasionally feel more engineered than organic. Certain twists exist because the movie wants to impress you, not because human behavior naturally leads there. However, this entry handles those excesses with more discipline. The escalating twists are paced with real tension, and the climactic confession is genuinely overpowering. It is the rare moment in this series where the emotional payoff matches the narrative ambition.

Daniel Craig, sporting a heavier Southern accent, longer hair, and a more world weary physicality, feels fully engaged in a way he has not since the original film. Blanc is not just a collection of quirks here. He is shaken, uncertain, and spiritually dislocated, and Craig leans into that vulnerability. Paired with O’Connor’s emotionally raw performance, the film achieves a level of resonance this franchise previously flirted with but never reached.

I still do not love these films. Their love of theatrical artifice and narrative gymnastics remains at odds with my taste. But “Wake Up Dead Man” finally feels like it has a pulse. If the series must continue, this should be the template: stranger, darker, riskier, and more emotionally honest.

Grade: B+

WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY streams on Netflix Friday, December 12.