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


 

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

“You're right. I guess the question is, do these stories convince us of a lie or do they resonate with something deep inside us that is profoundly true, that we can't express any other way, except for storytelling?”

“Touché, Padre.”

“ Father Jud that was… very good.”
-Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Perception is perhaps the greatest barrier facing faith nowadays. Both in and out of The Church. Perception consistently holds us hostage, disavowing us the opportunity to experience Catholicism as it was, and is intended to be conveyed to the wider world. I certainly do not have all the answers in that regard, to be honest I don't think we will get all the answers on this side of eternity. What we can do however, is keep the conversation of faith going, always returning to the fact that Christianity was not started by a litany of rules or regulations. but by a man. A humble carpenter from Nazareth who was God incarnate. His example is the one we should follow. All misconceptions and perceptions of Christianity are put right, if only we return to the source. Remembering that we, as His children, are continuing His conversation with the world, not our own.
Wake Up Dead Men: A Knives Out Mystery enthusiastically engages with this centuries old conversation. Using the whodunit mystery locked door structure, detective Benoit Blanc returns to investigate a murder mystery of redemptive proportion. The honesty by which Wake Up Dead Man structures its death oriented mind game of a puzzle is refreshing on all counts. This film interrogates the Catholic faith and its surrounding culture with a respect and dignity that it is seldom granted. This is a challenging film to be sure, but its intent is to ask honest questions, not fumigate cathedrals. Wake up Dead Man is a film that seeks to find the truth at the heart of Jesus's message. Even though it may stumble in some small ways in pursuit of that truth. Though, that is only a further indication that we are all human in need of the redemptive love of Christ. Which, in its own way, is a key thematic pillar of the film and a driving force for the solving of its mystery.
As a whole, Wake Up Dead Man, is what happens when honesty and due diligence supersede preconceived notions. It is a film that delights in its structure, while also using that structure to maintain a meaningful conversation about faith and the realities of misunderstanding. Director Rian Johnson and his team enthusiastically continue a deeply honest conversation about faith. Asking us the question: what is true faith in Christ? When it comes to it, do we truly know the God man who is the beating heart of Christianity, or are we just running our Faith on our own steam? The answer is yours to discover…

Rated PG-13 for violent content, bloody images, strong language, some crude sexual material, and smoking.

I found Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery to be delightfully inventive, deeply meaningful and thought-provoking. I hope in some way you do too.

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