“Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” is Benoit Blanc's Holy Grail Could this also be the final chapter in Rian Johnson's trilogy?

The nominations for the 2026 Golden Globes have been announced, but not a single one went to Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. A real shame, both for the investment Netflix dedicated to the saga born in 2019 (a full 469 million dollars) and for the quality of a cinematic mystery that proves to be on par with its predecessors, always adding new and surprising elements. While the previous titles had received some industry recognition, the lackluster reaction from the award season toward the third chapter of Knives Out does not reflect the quality of Rian Johnson’s project at all.

The cast of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

With a considerable budget of about 210 million dollars, far higher than the 40 million of the previous chapter, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery once again relies on a group of performers who help give shape and depth to the eccentric characters written and directed by Rian Johnson. Even so, they failed to secure even a nomination for Best Ensemble Cast at the Critics’ Choice Awards, which instead preferred to reiterate the choices of casting directors Tiffany Little Canfield and Bernard Telsey for Wicked: For Good (as if the first film wasn’t enough) or nominate the ramshackle crew of Noah Baumbach’s mediocre Jay Kelly.

Leading the mystery this time - still under the supervision of Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc - is young star Josh O’Connor, a priest with a former life as a boxer and a man with a burden on his conscience who finds himself in a small town with a community of worshippers dependent on the sermons and attention of the old deacon Wicks, played by a bearded Josh Brolin. An ambiguous figure who chooses the path of shame and public shaming instead of forgiveness and tolerance, creating a hard core of followers but going against the rest of the teachings of the Church through behavior that will clash with the ideals of love and acceptance upheld by the newly arrived Jud Duplenticy (O’Connor), who is accused of murder when Wicks is inexplicably killed.

The plot and message of the film

Focused on the rural community and making the church, with its naves and pulpit, the beating heart of the story, Wake Up Dead Man is a tale about faith that can turn into fanaticism and about the allure of idolatry that becomes blindness. Jud Duplenticy, arriving in the small community, is the newcomer received with suspicion, the outsider who cannot take root, especially since he does not impose himself with shouts and proclamations, but with calm and kindness. Wicks, portrayed by a brutish and rough Brolin, represents the past fossilized in prejudice and radicalization, who craves power and, to gain and maintain it, makes people feel small and wrong instead of purifying them and removing their sins. He is a leader like so many seen today, increasingly often, one who prefers attacking and blaming instead of understanding and absolving. He stirs up his followers by appealing to anger, excluding and labeling as impure everything that does not belong to the tiny congregation, while the worshippers will in turn prove dangerous.

Wake Up Dead Man is therefore a critique of contemporary society recreated through a small rural community onto which Johnson places a magnifying glass while the detective tries to solve a case that, according to Blanc himself, seems impossible. The case of all cases, the Holy Grail of mysteries. A concluding chapter (will it really be?) that, in addition to the charm of Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, once again demonstrates Johnson’s lively pen and his willingness to take risks as he constructs intricate narratives in which everything eventually falls into place. It was true with the precise, sharp, linear simplicity of the first film, with the Fibonacci-sequence enrichment of the second, and equally so with the focus on the storytelling of Wake Up Dead Man, enhanced by reflections on modern times and faith. A gospel according to Rian Johnson on command, dominance, and hypocrisy, upon which only truth and humanity can shed light.