Reel Rundown: Newest in ‘Knives Out’ lineup bring the church to the forefront

If you’ve seen Rian Johnson’s first two “Knives Out” movies – 2019’s “Knives Out” and 2022’s “Glass Onion” – you might think you know what to expect from Johnson’s new addition to the franchise, “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.”

And to a certain extent you’re likely right. Because the main plotline of “Wake Up Dead Man,” which is streaming on Netflix, follows that of the previous two movies in that it involves a murder and the subsequent investigation by the esteemed private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig).

But though Blanc is the one called in by the local police chief (Mila Kunis) to investigate the crime, the actual heart of what Johnson has put on the screen is the Catholic priest Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor). And in an era in which the Catholic Church has been embroiled in one scandal after the next, O’Connor’s character represents a return to what drives people to religion in the first place.

Or what should drive them there, at any rate.

Father Jud is a former boxer, a man struggling to replace the inherent rage lurking in his soul with love, kindness and acceptance. He once killed a man in the ring, and he still gives in to his rage on occasion, especially when confronted by obstinate stupidity. But he is intent on changing his ways.

So, after punching a colleague who, in the words of Bishop Langstrom (Jeffrey Wright) is “a few beads shy of a rosary,” Jud finds himself assigned to a small rural parish. His job is to serve as assistant pastor to Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), a priest who preaches fire and brimstone and directs his fury at all but the few members of the church who remain loyal.

It isn’t a pleasant situation to walk into, especially for Father Jud who despite his best efforts is dismissed rudely by Wicks. He also finds himself at odds with the church manager Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close) and all of Wicks’ disciples: town doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), lawyer Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), writer Lee Ross (Andrew Scott) and Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), a concert cellist hampered by a chronic disability.

Everything comes to a head when, during a church service, Wicks is murdered in a manner straight out of a classic locked-room mystery. In fact, when Blanc enters the scene, he references John Dickson Carr’s 1935 novel “The Hollow Man,” which is the archetype of the locked-room mystery genre.

As in his prior “Knives Out” movies, Johnson both apes classic mysteries and satirizes them at once. The mystery he gives us here is a complex study involving dysfunctional families, broken promises and a foiled inheritance involving a precious jewel, not to mention overarching greed.

His satire involves both his use of language (the parish church, for example, is called Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude) and by the broad-but-effective Southern character he dreamed up in Benoit that Craig fleshes out with spot-on comic timing.

If “Wake Up Dead Man” does have a flaw, it might be its near-two-and-a-half-hour length. Of course, to some of us, that just means we get to spend that much more time with an entertaining range of performances, from Craig’s distancing himself ever further from his James Bond image to the everyman presence of Thomas Haden Church as the parish handyman.

Still, it’s the British actor O’Connor who takes center stage. Craig’s Blanc at one point describes himself as “a disbeliever in every sense of the word.” And that feeling stands in direct contrast to the faith of Father Jud who both narrates the movie and serves as its central figure.

O’Connor plays the holy man fighting against his nature, working out the guilt he feels by attempting to bring the teachings of Jesus to a congregation that desperately needs it.

Then again, given today’s polarized world, we all – believers and disbelievers alike – could benefit from those teachings as well.