TL;DR – A visual delight, filled with actors giving stellar performances, fantastic chemistry, a riot of emotions, an intriguing mystery, and an honest exploration of motivations as old as time itself.  

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Warning – Contains a scene with flashing lights.

Wake Up Dead Man Review Introduction –

While people say that you should be impartial when writing a review, I find that, to use the words of Benoit Blanc, to be hooey. Art is subjective, and everyone will bring their own interpretations to art. Or to put it more bluntly, we all bring our own baggage along for the ride. But more than that, sometimes a film speaks to you on a fundamental personal level due to things happening in your life right at the moment you see it. Well, for me, we will be looking at just such a film today.  

So, to set the scene, we open with Rev. Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) writing a letter to the famous private detective/investigator Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) about the Good Friday Murder. Jud was a boxer before he found Christ, and sometimes comes out swinging still. This led Bishop Langstrom (Jeffrey Wright) to send the young Catholic priest upstate to the town of Chimmy Rock and to the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude run by Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). Msgr. Wicks rules his congregation with an iron fist, the kind of ministry that creates zealots out of parishioners like Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), Dr Sharp (Jeremy Renner), Vera Draven (Kerry Washington), Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack) & Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church). But even in a group as tight as this, there is murder afoot, and maybe Benoit Blanc is the only one who can see through all the hooey.