Official Trailer:
In Wake up Dead Man, director and writer Rian Johnson sets the who done it crime thriller in a small church community. Detective Benoit Blanc has to investigate a murder that happened within the church on a Good Friday service. Rian Johnson uses the murder investigation premise to explore organized religion, faith, grace, and humanity. He beautifully merges the genre tropes with characters that stand somewhere on the belief spectrum. This is done with mix of seriousness and humor. It examines the religion and faith without mocking the believers. The murder is witnessed by the attendees on that Good Friday day. They are at once witnesses and suspects. It happened in a sacred place and must have been done by a person of faith. The murderer could have done it outside church premises. But it was done within the sacred place. Then the question arises what pushed the person of faith to commit this violent crime in a sacred place?
Monsignor Jefferson Wicks sees religion and faith as a tool to grab power, control, influence, and money. In his view there is no forgiveness. He attacks people who don’t belong. He wields absolute control over his followers. Martha Delacroix has deep faith and doesn’t see religion as a tool to gain control. But her belief has no space for others who are different. There is no inclusion and she is unforgiving. For her things are binary. You can say she lacks the humanity / kindness. Father Jud Duplenticy is a man of faith with a reformist mind. He sees church as a place of redemption, grace, and forgiving. In earlier life he has killed a person in the boxing ring. Religion pulled him out of hate, and where he is now is because of faith. His beliefs stem from that transformation. Detective Benoit Blanc is an atheist and doesn’t believe in religion. As he introduces himself, he kneels at the altar of the rational. But he is not intolerant to religion or its believers. His rational thinking gives him the understanding of human behavior. You can say he falls under rational humanitarian bucket. We get few others like Lee Cross, Dr. Nat, Vera, Cy, Simone who fall in between hoping god will help them to get over their hurdles, sort of a miracle. Then there is the social media – which has way more virtual followers than the numbers who attend the church. Wicks’ fiery speeches go viral on social media.
Movie ends with a wonderful climax and a beautiful message. Rational detective and faithful Jud converge at a point of redemption, grace, and humanity. Detective’s behavior when he is about to reveal the identity of the murderer and Martha’s confession sequence in the climax are one of the best moments in the movie. Detective gets the Road to Damascus moment and realizes law and justice aren’t the same thing. Mr. Mercedes web series has a similar moment in the courtroom in third season. Daniel Craig as Benoit, Josh O’Connor as Jud, Gleen Close as Martha, Josh Brolin as Wicks give their best performances. Dialogues are funny and sharp. Cinematography with its use of shadows adds to the mood.
Faith is complex. Faith can move mountains. At its best faith can drive people to build cities and civilizations. At its worst it can drive populations to go to war and commit genocide. Faith can cultivate kindness and unity. It can also cultivate hatred and divisions. It can be a tool to grab power and wield control, or it can inspire inclusion, redemption, and grace. Movie left me with the thought that religion and humanity have to go together. Similarly rational and humanity. Religion and Rational? Can they go together? I think it is possible if we replace religion with spirituality. But that is a separate blog post!!