Wake Up Dead Man : A Knives Out Mystery came with a familiar promise and a dramatic change in scenery. I was glad to meet another cast of delightfully eccentric suspects and a next-to-perfect crime to solve. Having watched the first two installments, I trusted the payoff and knew that the movie would place the evidence in front on me.
I didn’t solve the crime. It’s not that I’m not careful or observant. Rather, I’m pretty sure that I looked in the right direction. The reason why I couldn’t solve it (and you won’t either) is because I’m not Benoit Blanc.
Benoit Blanc is spectacular at being unspectacular. Daniel Craig’s detective remains an unusual presence in contemporary cinema. He does not command rooms, nor does he project authority. He does not accelerate the narrative through action or intimidation as Bond would have. Instead, he listens. He waits. He lets people explain themselves until explanation becomes confession. He even tries to slow things down by standing around and walking next to people at critical moments.
What’s interesting is that, while the movie has its cast of eccentric and astonishingly odd characters, featuring a priest obsessed with onanism, a novelist building a fortress in the woods, a lawyer raising a kid of her age, a doctor coping with his divorce through addiction and a lady screaming a little too much, Benoit Blanc still steals the show.
That’s because, unlike the two other installments, this movie has a second plot, almost invisible but almost working as a mystery of its own kind, which is Blanc’s relationship with religion and God.
I’m not going to discuss the ending in detail, as it’s worth watching for this subplot alone. But it is worth noting how carefully it is woven into the narrative. Religion here is not decoration, nor satire alone. It is doubt. It is patience. It is the refusal to act before understanding. Blanc remains the only character comfortable admitting that he does not know in a small world driven by certainty.
Seen from that angle, Benoit Blanc begins to look like the inverse of the most famous Daniel Craig role. James Bond moves through the world as if it were designed for him. He forces outcomes when he has to. He dominates space and timing. Blanc does none of that. He simply observes, and walks around slowly. He allows the world to reveal itself, even when that revelation is uncomfortable.
The film is not without flaws. Its satire sometimes overshoots its target, and its cleverness occasionally announces itself too loudly. Yet these excesses feel secondary. What ultimately makes the movie work is its faith in a different kind of hero. One who wins not through power, speed, or violence, but through attention.
Wake Up Dead Man remains, first and foremost, an entertaining mystery. Beneath that surface, it quietly proposes Benoit Blanc. Not a savior. Not a conqueror, and certainly not a hero. Just a peculiar and slow man who listens long enough for the truth to speak. And ends up opening his heart.
