Film reviews: Wake Up Dead Man is easily the best of the three Knives Out films

Daniel Craig is as hilarious as ever as the cornpone Benoit Blanc

Fri, 28 Nov, 2025 - 12:00

Declan Burke

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

★★★★★

If it’s ‘devilment, blasphemy, and evil incarnate’ that floats your boat, then Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (15A) delivers in spades.

The third in Rian Johnson’s series of quirky murder investigations opens with the firebrand priest Fr Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) being dispatched to the town of Chimney Rock, where the fearsome Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin) rules his congregation with a rod of iron.

Sci-fi author Lee (Andrew Scott), local doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), and sacristan Martha (Glenn Close) are all in thrall to Wicks’ fire-and-brimstone spiel, but Fr Duplenticy grows concerned that Wicks is preaching a deeply conservative message that runs contrary to the Church’s message of forgiveness and love.

When Wicks is stabbed to death on the altar of his church whilst saying mass, the community is plunged into a bewildered horror, and not least because it’s an apparently impossible murder.

Thankfully, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) soon arrives on the scene with his Southern-fried charm, a sharp eye for the telling detail, and a point-blank refusal to believe that there was a supernatural element to Monsignor Wicks’ death.

The first Knives Out film (2019) was a charmingly off-beat take on the murder mystery genre, while the second, Glass Onion (2022) was an overblown farrago. Wake Up Dead Man is easily the best of the three films, in part because Rian Johnson has rooted his convention-bending fun in a serious story about misinformation and the abuse of faith, but also because the performances are superb.

Daniel Craig is as hilarious as ever as the cornpone Benoit Blanc, Glenn Close is deliciously sinister as a woman deranged by her devotion, while Josh O’Connor and Josh Brolin are very impressive as the straight men to Craig’s comic flourishes, with Brolin in particular hugely convincing as an Old Testament-style prophet complete with flowing locks and beard.

Christy

★★★★☆

Opening in West Virginia in 1989, Christy (15A) is a biopic of the boxing champion Christy Martin, with Sydney Sweeney in the eponymous role.

A young gay woman desperate to escape her oppressively homophobic world, Christy accidentally discovers that she has potential as a boxer, in large part because she has a jackhammer of a right arm.

Veteran trainer Jim Martin (Ben Foster) takes Christy under his wing as she tries to establish herself during the formative years of women’s professional boxing, but Jim quickly proves himself a malign influence who coerces Christy into marrying him before settling in to live off the proceeds of her talent.

Written by Katharine Fugate, Mirrah Foulkes, and David Michôd, with Michôd directing, Christy is a powerful account of a ground-breaking athlete who was obliged to fight more bitter and violent battles in her private life than she ever did in the ring. Ben Foster provides strong support as the abusive svengali, but Sydney Sweeney sweeps all before her as the powerhouse pugilist who simply refuses to be beaten.

Blue Moon

★★★★☆

Told over the course of a single evening in 1943, Blue Moon (15A) stars Ethan Hawke as Lorenz ‘Larry’ Hart, a 47-year-old alcoholic who has previously

co-written some of the best-known numbers in the American songbook with Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), but has just sat through the premiere of Oklahoma!, which Rodgers composed with his new writing partner, Oscar Hammerstein (Simon Delaney).

Retreating to his favourite watering hole, Sardis, Hart regales barman Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) and pianist Morty Rifkin (Jonah Lees) with anecdotes from his colourful life, all the while trying to explain his fascination with the 20-year-old student Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley).

Richard Linklater’s latest film is a little stage-bound — virtually all the action takes place in Sardis — but features what is arguably a career-best performance from Ethan Hawke as the ebullient, erudite, and cynical raconteur who is driven to perform for his tiny audience even his world collapses around him.