Ordinarily when I review a film in theaters, I label that as “movie review.” Even when that film is heading to Netflix after a short theatrical run, Search Engine Optimization demands that you call it such.
But for most Netflix features and Netflix series, I headline reviews of that content with a “Netflixable?” label.
I make an exception for the third “Knives Out” film, “Wake Up Dead Man.” Because there’s little about this that begs to be seen in a cinema. It’ll keep until December when it starts streaming.
The targets are big, the cast is accomplished, but the mystery? Well, let’s just say it’s more “out there,” and by and large less interesting than in the first two films. And the wit that sparked the original film and gave that all-star cast all those moments to shine is mostly missing from a murder mystery that features “Fatal Attraction’s” Glenn Close, “Scandal’s” Kerry Washington and Andrew Scott of “All of us Strangers.”
The deadpan, foghorn-voiced comic Thomas Haden Church is wasted .Jeremy Renner is in over his head. Mila Kunis is forced to play the straightwoman. Jeffrey Wright scores laughs with most every line — and is only in a couple of scenes. And Daniel Craig’s Tennessee Williams homosexual Southern drawl can’t carry the picture because writer-director Rian Johnson insists on having a priest/suspect (Josh O’Connor of “Challengers” and “Emma.”) voice-over narrate the “plot” of the mystery and the list of other suspects — aside from himself — to death.
We can inFER, as drawling gentleman-detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) must, that having this most-likely-to-murder suspect narrate the story means he isn’t the priest who killed his Monsignor (Josh Brolin). But should we?
A judgemental, reactionary Monsignor (Brolin) of the Seize-the-Supreme-Court wing of the Catholic church is metaphorically “poisoning” his Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude congregation in tiny Chimney Rock, New York.
A foul-mouthed, two-fisted young seminarian (O’Connor) is sent to this rural hamlet as punishment and penance by his Archbishop (Wright). Father Jud Duplencity may question his Monsignor’s divisive hate and vitriol. But the paranoid Monsignor Wicks has no intention of letting Father Jud “take my church.” And to the Monsignor’s cult of close congregants, the new guy is just a “PINO — Priest in Name Only.”
When the Monsignor dies, mid-sermon, in a closed room to one side of the ship’s prow-shaped pulpit (borrowed from John Huston’s “Moby Dick”), Father Jud is the police chief’s (Kunis) only serious suspect.
It’s an “impossible” crime of the “locked room” variety. But the chief’s summoned “proud heretic” sleuth Benoit Blanc to parse the evidence and solve the mystery, even as it takes on more and more messianic tones.
“This was dressed as a miracle,” Blanc purrs.“But it’s just a murder. I SOLVE murders.”
Whodunit? The doctor (Renner)? The disabled cellist (Cailee Spaeny) promised a “miracle?” Might it be the mystery novelist (Scott) who turned utterly fascist under Monsignor Wicks’ tutelage?” The slavishly devoted church secretary/bookeeper (Close)? Her slavishly devoted groundskeeper (Haden-Church)? The parish attorney (Washington)? Her right wing politico/influencer adoptive brother (Daryl McCormack of “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande”)?
The fiery Washington comes off best among the suspects, and Brolin — wild-haired and wild-eyed — dazzles as a priest drunk with power over the idea of “saving” the world from “feminists” and “communists.”
The film’s topical touches — conservative politicians and theologians playing a zero-sum game of demonizing those who question their dogma and look puzzled when a more deeply divided country suffers with every new conservative assault on a minority group — are the weightiest of any of these movies. The target is consequential, easy and yet slippery.
Writer-director Johnson lands only glancing blows.
The voice-over narrated “story” of this crime’s preamble wears out its welcome well before the midway point of the movie, where that’s explained and mostly dispensed with.
O’Connor does an OK job of suggesting a priest in conflict with his past and his deepest held beliefs — but only OK. The other suspects are barely glanced over and that takes all the wind out of blowhard Blanc’s gather-the-suspects, deconstruct their crimes “pronouncement” in the finale.
There are a few laughs and some chewy turns (Brolin, mainly) to sink our teeth into. But “Wake Up Dead Man,” for all its St. Paul Blinded on the Road to Damascus “case of pink-eye” zingers, doesn’t amuse enough to dazzle, and doesn’t get the best out of a cast that deserves better.
It plays. More or less. Craig has fun in the part, albeit less fun than in either of the first two films.
But it’s not worth seeing in a theater. And maybe Johnson should think about talking Netflix into giving him a blank (Blanc?) check to direct something other than new installments in this franchise.
Rating: PG-13, violence, murder most foul, and profanity
Cast: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Jefffrey Wright, Thomas Haden Church and Glenn Close.
Credits: Scripted and directed by Rian Johnson. A Netflix release.
Running time: 2:22
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