"Wake Up Dead Man" review — "Knives Out" three-quel is a darker, grace-filled satire
“This was dressed as a miracle. It’s just a murder, and I solve murders.” A small congregation of embittered, faithful followers. A church haunted by a decades-old family tragedy. A greedy and ego-driven elder priest screams from the pulpit. And an elusive 80-million-dollar fortune waiting for someone to find it. This is the perilous situation that Jud Duplenticy, a young Catholic priest played by Josh O’Connor, finds himself in when he arrives at the parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude in the small coastal town of Chimney Rock, New York. Jud’s ideas of the church are simple, in that its purpose is to help the poor and needy, just like how Christ himself “came to heal the world, not fight it.” But when he encounters Jefferson Wicks, the parish’s brash and coarse-mouthed priest, he knows that it will not be an easy path for him to work within that community. Wicks holds onto his slim number of congregants with fear and trembling, exploiting their paranoia, family ties, and sense o...
