It’s a tricky game they play, these movies, setting out to be both legitimate whodunnits and parodies of the genre. Wake Up Dead Man is the most self-consciously old-school instalment yet, harking back to the tradition of the Gothic novel: the background to the mystery spans generations, with a hidden treasure and a couple of illegitimate children among the many buried secrets brought to light.
Josh O’Connor and Josh Brolin in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.Credit: AP
Considering the games played by Johnson in the past, we can’t even be sure Father Jud’s own testimony should be taken at face value, though O’Connor’s performance leaves no doubt that Jud is at least a good listener – the first requirement for a priest, one would think – and a man of more depth than the satirical cartoons that surround him.
If anything, O’Connor is too good for the film, making it harder for Johnson to sustain his usual mildly camp tone where everything is in quotation marks. The moment we’re asked to take any of this hokum halfway seriously, the social commentary starts to look a bit preachy, the plotting more than a bit creaky, and the facetious dialogue in need of reining in: however willing we might be to suspend disbelief, having Father Jud describe himself as “young, dumb and full of Christ” is a step too far.
Nor is the thematic logic entirely under control, especially when Blanc, a man of reason rather than faith, starts to loom over the action like a god in his own right. Still, Craig’s showboating remains as amusing as ever – and Johnson is so plainly enthralled by his own gift for spinning tales that the lapses are easy to forgive.
