Wake Up Dead Man A Knives Out Mystery Movie Review

 

Wake Up Dead Man 2025
 
A Hollywood director takes on Christianity and MAGA

 

SPOILER ALERT: this review will reveal the endings of all three Knives Out films.

 

Wake Up Dead Man is a 2025 murder mystery written and directed by Rian Johnson. Wake Up Dead Man opened in the US on November 26, 2025, and then began streaming on Netflix on December 12th. It is roughly two and a half hours long. The film reportedly cost $151 million.

 

Wake Up Dead Man is the third entry in the Knives Out franchise; the first was 2019's Knives Out; the second was 2022's Glass Onion. The franchise stars celebrity detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), a gay Southerner with a Foghorn Leghorn accent. The films feature high production values, witty, literate scripts, and all-star casts. They are mostly family-friendly, with few f-bombs, and no nudity, earning PG-13 ratings. They have been hailed as a return to Golden Age Hollywood glamor and storytelling, and classic Agatha-Christie-style whodunits.

 

Johnson's politics saturate his plots. Knives Out, the first film in the franchise, skewers white Americans with inherited wealth and upholds vulnerable, victimized, and virtuous Hispanic immigrant laborers. Glass Onion critiques tech bros. A rich white man cheats a black woman and drives her to suicide; her heroic sister avenges her death.

 

This review will offer a summary of Wake Up Dead Man's convoluted, implausible plot. It will then discuss the film's critical reception. This review will close with my own reaction.

 

PLOT SUMMARY

 

Wake Up Dead Man opens with a letter written by Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor) to Benoit Blanc. Jud's superior, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) has been murdered. Jud is laying out the events leading up to the so-called "Good Friday murder" in order to help Blanc discover the identity of the killer.

 

Father Jud describes himself as "young, dumb, and full of Christ." He sees two ways to approach the world. One way is with fists raised, ready to fight. Another way is with arms wide open. He says that the Christian way is to approach the world with arms wide open. "Christ came to heal, not fight."

 

Jud is assigned to Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, overseen by Monsignor Jefferson Wicks. Jud enters the Gothic church's interior, and notices that there is a blank, cross-shaped mark on the wall where a crucifix would normally be found. The back door opens, and light and shadow fall over that empty, cross-shaped space. This is the first of many times that Johnson uses light and shadow to emphasize story beats. Wicks is entering the church, and he is evil. He is the darkness falling across kindly Father Jud and the empty cross-shaped space.

 

Wicks immediately asks Father Jud to hear his confession. Wicks confesses graphic accounts of masturbation.

 

Father Jud meets the rest of the cast members, who are also suspects in the upcoming murder.

 

Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close) is the ugly crone who holds the church together. She is Wicks' sort-of-spouse, housekeeper, cook, dresser, office worker, and a bug-eyed fanatic.

 

Martha has been with the church since she was a child. She knew Prentice Wicks, Jefferson Wicks' grandfather. Jefferson Wicks' parishioners speak of Prentice Wicks' late daughter and Jefferson Wicks' mother, Grace, as The Harlot Whore. Rian Johnson's name choice informs the audience that Jefferson Wicks and his parishioners regard the primary Christian virtue, God's loving, forgiving, all-embracing grace, as undesirable. We know this because Grace is the name given to a character they all dub "The Harlot Whore." In other words, Jefferson Wicks is the leader of a cult that emphasizes intolerance, judgment, and condemnation, rather than love and acceptance.

 

Martha's name is also a tell. She is named after Martha, a Biblical character who was obsessed with housekeeping, rather than awareness of Jesus' transcendent presence.

 

Prentice Wicks had a fortune. He understood wealth to be corrupting, thus he called wealth "Eve's Apple." He did not want his daughter Grace to inherit his wealth, so he hid it. Only Martha knows where the fortune is. Grace, her face sweaty and make-up smeared, clad only in a skimpy slip, claws to pieces the church's artworks, destroying statues and paintings, seeking the fortune. It was she who pulled down the crucifix. The empty spot is kept empty in remembrance of The Harlot Whore. Johnson, an opponent of institutional Christianity, might approve of Grace's acts of iconoclasm.

 

Samson Holt, the groundskeeper (Thomas Haden Church), lives in a garage. He is a former alcoholic. He says that Wicks sobered him up. Samson loves Martha, and, like the Biblical Samson, the woman he loves will destroy him. The Biblical Samson, though, before he died, tore down a Philistine temple. Johnson, as with Grace, may approve of Samson's destruction of the Philistine church Johnson has created in the character of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks.

 

Vera Draven (Kerry Washington) is an attorney. Her father was a follower of Wicks. Her father forced Vera to serve as adoptive mother to Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack). Vera taps her tea cup. This teacup tap is an allusion to the film Get Out. In that film, a teacup tap is part of a brainwashing technique used by evil white people to keep black people in line. Vera is black. Her teacup tap suggests that oppressive white society has brainwashed her. There are many allusions to films in Dead Man.

 

Cy, Vera's adopted son, desperately wants to be a political leader and an internet influencer. He tells Jud he tried to be the "GOP Golden Boy." "I hammered the race thing, the border thing, the trans thing, the homeless thing, the war thing, the election thing, the abortion thing, the climate thing, the thing about induction stoves, library books, Israel, vaccines, pronouns, AK 47s, socialism, BLM, CRT, the CDC, DEI, 5G, everything. People are so numb these days. I don't know why." Cy says that the way to gain power is to show people "something they hate and then make them think it's going to take away something they love."

 

Dr. Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner) is succumbing to alcoholism. He is broken-hearted because his wife Darla left him.

 

Lee Ross (Andrew Scott) is a bestselling science fiction author. He has "unplugged his brain from the liberal hive mind." He is disappointed that so many of his readers are survivalists who dress like Walter Sobchak, the character played by John Goodman in The Big Lebowski. He wants to reach a more elite readership, and he believes that writing a biography of Monsignor Wicks will help with that. Lee has retreated from the world. He calls his home "The Fortress" and he has built a moat around it.

 

Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny) is a world class cellist. She hopes that Wicks will cure her of a disabling illness that causes chronic pain and interferes with her ability to perform.

 

Monsignor Wicks delivers fire-and-brimstone sermons. Every week, he picks out one member of the congregation to demonize and drive out of the church. This becomes a spectacle for his faithful followers. Since parishioners don't do anything to interrupt Wicks' abusive bullying, they become complicit. This complicity enhances their commitment to Monsignor Wicks' cult-leader hold over them.

 

Father Jud, new to the church, tries to introduce his own approach, one of open arms, not raised fists. He gathers together Wicks' faithful, that is, the characters mentioned above, for a love-based prayer meeting. The group rejects Father Jud's approach. Father Jud challenges Martha: does she trust Wicks enough to confess her deepest sin to him?

 

Father Jud and Wicks meet. Jud tells Wicks that he is "intentionally" keeping the congregation "angry and afraid." Wicks punches Father Jud in the abdomen. Jud falls to the ground. Wicks kicks Jud in the abdomen. Jud struggles to rise and raises his fist.

 

"Anger is good," Wicks says. Modernity is the enemy, Wicks insists. We've lost ground to feminist Marxist whores. We must fight to regain territory. Love and forgiveness is a sop. Father Jud, Wicks accuses, is nothing but a "simpering child," unfit to lead a besieged church that must rise and fight modernity.

 

Father Jud says, "You are poisoning this church. I'll cut you out like a cancer."

 

Cy films the entire encounter.

 

Father Jud goes to a bar called Il Diavolo (The Devil). Jud gets drunk and grabs a devil-head ornament and throws it through the church window.

 

Wicks delivers another fire-and-brimstone sermon. "Our church is assailed by wicked modernity! By the enemies of God! The harlot whores! The vermin who would oppress and silence and bar us from our rightful place as rulers of a Christian nation! I am a warrior of Christ, in the armor of God, ready to fight the world to my last breath! You shall not pass!"

 

Wicks retreats to a three-sided alcove next to the main altar. There, he falls to the ground. Father Jud follows him and discovers blood on his back. Doctor Nat approaches and says, "Don't touch anything." Dr. Nat pulls a knife topped with the devil-head ornament from Wicks' back.

 

Cy posts on YouTube his video of Father Jud saying that he wants to cut Wicks out like a cancer. Father Jud is immediately suspected as Wicks' murderer.

 

Father Jud falls to his knees in the empty church. He begs God to rescue him. Once again, as with Wicks' first appearance, the back door of the church opens, and light falls across the empty, cross-shaped space. Benoit Blanc appears. Atheist and Christophobe Blanc will rescue the helpless and befuddled Catholic, Father Jud.

 

Blanc asks, "Are you open?"

 

Father Jud replies, "Always." Again, Jud's stance is open arms.

 

Blanc announces himself as an aesthete, capable of a refined appreciation of art. He recognizes and values the church's Gothic design. But, "I'm a proud heretic. I kneel at the altar of the rational." About the Catholic church, Blanc says,

 

"It's built upon the empty promise of a child's fairy tale. Filled with malevolence, misogyny, and homophobia. And its unjustified untold acts of violence and cruelty. While all the while still hiding its own shameful acts . Like an ornery mule kicking back I want to pick it apart and pop its perfidious bubble of belief and get to a truth I can swallow without choking. Telling the truth can be a bitter herb … you can't always be honest with your parishioners."

 

The "bitter herb" line is a quote from the movie Ishtar.

 

Father Jud smiles and responds that his church's architecture "Has more in common with Disneyland than Notre Dame." Father Jud's comment, comparing his church to Disneyland, a place of childhood fantasy, is as contemptuous as is Blanc's.

 

Father Jud concedes to Blanc that the church's "rites and rituals and costumes" are nothing but "storytelling" that possibly "convince us of a lie." Or, perhaps, they "resonate with something deep inside that's profoundly true that we can't express any other way than through storytelling."

 

As Father Jud speaks, the sun shines through the window behind him, illuminating him dramatically.

 

"Touché, padre," Blanc says.

 

Father Jud then collapses in tears. Blanc comforts him, calling him "son."

 

Jud whines to this complete stranger, whom he doesn't know at all. "I felt like a priest. Now I'm gonna lose that. Lose my purpose, and I'm frightened. I'm lost."

 

Atheist Blanc reveals God-like omniscient and compassion. "You haven't slept. You've been out in the forest on your knees in prayer. Would you allow me to help you?"

 

Police Chief Geraldine Scott arrives. Chief Geraldine is played by Mila Kunis, who is so miscast, she pulls you out of the movie. The three go to the morgue to examine Wicks' body. Blanc is unafraid to examine a corpse; Father Jud runs away and collapses to the floor of the hallway. Blanc must comfort Jud and buck him up. Blanc shouts at Jud and all but slaps him in the face to stop his hysterics.

 

At the Il Diavolo bar, Blanc and Jud compare two different photos of the lamp where Jud grabbed the devil's head ornament. Blanc notices a key clue. There had been two devil's head ornaments, and both are now missing, though Father Jud took only one.

 

In the rectory, they discover a reading list for Martha's book club. The club was reading "locked door mysteries," a "syllabus for how to commit crime."

 

Blanc considers all the possibilities for how Wicks was murdered. One option is a remote control device that stabbed Wicks in the back. Sam had recorded a sporting event that took place during the service. They go to Sam's garage and ask him to replay that game. At the time when Wicks was murdered, the video tape shows static from electrical interference caused by a radio frequency. This supports the theory that a remote control device stabbed Wicks. But Blanc is unsure.

 

Father Jud, again, falls apart and becomes weepy. "I put my faith in you. You can't solve the mystery. Oh God, oh God."

 

Blanc accuses Jud of hiding a flask. The flask contained alcohol that Wicks drank from during mass. Wicks kept the flask hidden in the alcove. 

 

Father Jud replies that he hid the flask as part of "a little storytelling to protect my flock." In other words, Jud hid the flask to prevent the parishioners from discovering that Wicks drank alcohol during mass.

 

Blank is outraged. "Bulls---! In protecting their bubble of belief you have shielded a killer!"

 

"I didn't think, " Jud replies.

 

"No, you did not think," Blanc yells.

 

Blanc discovers that Wicks had held a Palm Sunday meeting for his faithful followers, and Cy recorded that meeting. Blanc views Cy's recording. At the meeting, as seen in Cy's video, Vera announces that she has recently discovered that Cy, the boy she was forced to raise, is in fact Wicks' son.

 

Rather than being shocked and rejecting Wicks, his supporters rush to his side. Lee says that "We're fighting an existential war. The ends justify the means. The church doesn't need some pussy who is going to lie down and take it. We need a warrior."

 

Dr. Nat Sharp asks, "What is truth?" Questioning the very nature of Vera's revelation.

 

Wicks, rather than showing any appreciation for his supporters' loyalty, insults them. He accuses Lee of "bootlicking idiocy." He says that Dr. Nat endangers patients by practicing medicine while intoxicated. Wicks castigates Simone for not having enough faith – that's why, he says, he can't cure her of her chronic illness.

 

Wicks' sudden reversal is explained in flashbacks. After Father Jud challenged Martha to confess her deepest sin to Wicks, she did so. Martha confessed to Wicks that she knew where Wicks' grandfather, Prentice, hid his fortune. Prentice Wicks is shown pretending that he is receiving communion when, in fact, he is swallowing a diamond. After Prentice died, the diamond remained in his abdomen. His body is entombed in a mausoleum.

 

After Martha confessed this to Wicks, Wicks phoned a construction company to open the mausoleum, so that he could search his grandfather's corpse for the diamond. Cy told Wicks that once he had his hands on the fortune, the two of them together could broadcast his hate-filled sermons to millions. Wicks could become president. This father-and-son duo could be, as Father Jud says, like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker.

 

Blanc and Father Jud phone Steel Wheel construction company, the people who opened the mausoleum in order to entomb Wicks. Louise (Bridget Everett) answers the phone. In the background, a Doobie Brothers' song is heard on Louise's radio. The song lyrics include these words: "What a fool believes he sees the wise man has the power to reason away; what seems to be is always better than nothing."

 

Louise asks Father Jud if he would be willing to pray with her. Her mother is dying. Father Jud is kind to Louise. Father Jud's kindness to Louise is explained by the song Johnson chose for the background. Louise and Jud are both weak, desperate, self-deceiving fools, who cling to the false comfort of religion, because they are not "wise."

 

Father Jud collapses (again). He and Blanc are on the cusp of solving the murder, and Jud says he won't investigate the murder any more, because he wants to retreat to the world of religion, as if there were some conflict between solving a murder and being a priest (there is not).

 

After breaking up with Blanc, Father Jud witnesses a "resurrection." The mausoleum door opens and someone who looks like Wicks emerges. Father Jud falls (again) and slides in mud. He hallucinates that he kills Wicks. In fact the man who emerged was Sam, costumed to look like Wicks, so that his followers could stage a "miraculous" resurrection.

 

Father Jud goes to the police station to turn himself in for murder. Blanc rescues Father Jud (again). Blanc prevents Jud from turning himself in. The two drive to Dr. Nat Sharp's house. There they discover a vat of acid. Dr. Nat's corpse is decomposing in the vat, as is Sam's.

 

Father Jud, still covered in mud, returns to the church and gets down on his hands and knees (again) to confess to a murder he did not commit. Atheist Blanc rescues Catholic priest Jud (again).  

 

Blanc mounts the pulpit and "preaches" a "sermon." "It is time to break the tawdry façade of miracles and resurrection and reveal what really happened! It is time for Benoit Blanc's final checkmate over the mysteries of faith!"

 

Officer Geraldine denounces Christianity as "Mishigas."

 

"God is a fiction," Blanc agrees.

 

Blanc reveals much of the plot, but, in an act of humility, he forgoes revealing what he has deduced. He allows Martha to confess.

 

Martha gets on her knees to Jud. Jud is, as ever, feckless and confused. Atheist Blanc guides Catholic priest Jud. "Be her priest," he instructs.

 

Jud gets on his knees. In fact priests sit when hearing confession, but Rian Johnson loves dropping Father Jud to the ground, and never misses a chance to do so.

 

Martha's confession to Father Jud fills in the details missing from the murder mystery. After confessing to Wicks the secret of Prentice's fortune, she decided to kill Wicks, because she knew he'd use his fortune in corrupt ways. Dr. Nat Sharp provided Martha with poison to place in Wicks' booze flask. He drank the poison and dropped. Dr. Nat plunged a knife with a devil's head fixed to the top into Wicks' back. Since Father Jud had been seen with something like that ornament in his hands, he would be blamed for Wicks' murder. Sam pretended to be Wicks rising from the dead, so that the group could claim a miracle. Martha had wanted to throw Prentice's diamond into the ocean. Her plan is an allusion to the 1997 film Titanic.

 

Dr. Nat wanted the diamond for himself. He, not Father Jud, stabbed Samson to death. Dr. Nat was melting Sam's body in a vat of acid in his basement. He also planned to poison Martha, but she switched cups and Nat drank the poison and died. Martha had drunk some poison before her confession, and she dies after her full confession to Father Jud. Jud takes the diamond from Martha and becomes lead priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude. As we see Father Jud at his church, the song "Tis a Gift to Be Simple" plays on the soundtrack. The word "simple" is of course sometimes used to mean "simple-minded."

 

Finally we see Lee at a book signing. All of his fans look like John Goodman from The Big Lebowski.

 

CRITICAL REACTION

 

Wake Up Dead Man enjoys a 92% positive rating from professional reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes. Amateur reviewers give it 94%. New York magazine's headline christens Dead Man with the height of ridiculous effusion: "The Pope Would Love the New Knives Out Movie." NPR's Linda Holmes gushes that Dead Man is "incredibly rich and satisfying … full of kindness and compassion for the characters … the very rare, really good American mainstream movie about faith."

 

The New Yorker admires Johnson's "razor-sharp progressive politics" and how though "Donald Trump is never invoked in Wake Up Dead Man … Wicks has undeniably built his own Trumpian cult of personality, and he holds the church's most loyal parishioners in his sway." The film "directs its political ire at the unholy alliance of Christianity and the political right; the intolerance, insularity, and rampant misogyny that have taken root in the church." Dead Man deserves a place "on the same shelf as the writings of G. K. Chesterton and Dorothy L. Sayers, both great crime writers and Christian apologists, and of P. D. James, an Anglican for whom the detective story was a powerfully moral exercise."

 

The Washington Post hails Dead Man as "hilarious … deep … impressive … enthralling … thoughtful … delicious … fascinating … meaty … gorgeous … masterful." The New York Times observes that Dead Man "has a lot on its mind, mostly revolving around religion: what it is, what it isn't and how it gets twisted and exploited to incite fear and hate. Somehow, that's all done with a remarkably light, affectionately irreverent touch." The film "really sings;" "Johnson's writing feels genuinely wise and well-informed."

 

Not just secular reviewers, but Christian-identified ones, too, worship Dead Man. Leftist Catholic deacon Steven Greydanus praises Dead Man in U.S. Catholic. Greydanus calls the film "exhilarating." The film depicts a large "moral universe." Greydanus lauds the scene where Father Jud prays with Louise. Greydanus appears not to have noticed the soundtrack to that scene, the soundtrack that mocks both Father Jud and Louise as "fools" who "believe" the "nothing" that the "wise man has the power to reason away."

 

The Presbyterian Outlook called Dead Man "the most Christian film of the year." "Through Jud," filmmaker Rian "Johnson honors what the church can be when it meets neighbors in need with love and humility."

 

The Gospel Coalition writes, "Wicks is obviously a proxy for Donald Trump. This makes it clear from the first minutes that Johnson intends this film not just to examine Christianity's faults generally but rather to specifically assess what he sees as the corrupting influences of Trumpism on American Christianity." In Seen and Unseen, Christian scholar Krish Kandiah analyzes Wake Up Dead Man as a critique of Christian nationalism.

 

There are some naysayers. TIME's Stephanie Zecharek says that the plot "is fatally cluttered, and the story winds up in a blur of exposition that's not particularly clever." Kyle Smith in the Wall Street Journal writes that the mystery's denouement is "about as elegant as a demolition derby conducted at a landfill." Mark Kennedy at the Associated Press writes that Johnson, in his previous films, "skewered old and new money." Now he's going after religion in "a gloomy and clunky outing that may test fans' faith in the filmmaker." Johnson's film includes "operatic overacting." and "bites off more than it can digest attempting cultural satire … You won't exactly need to be nudged awake but it gets pretty soggy there for a while in the middle."  

 

MY REACTION

 

As a film fan, I must give credit where credit is due. I like the resurrected Golden Age style of the Knives Out movies. I love the high production values, the glossy look, the all-star casts, and the family-friendly PG 13 rating. I appreciate Johnson's literate scripts. Johnson cites Robert McKee as an influence. McKee is the famous presenter of the Story Seminar that emphasizes story structure.

 

Dead Man includes laugh-out-loud funny moments. Wicks' confessing his masturbation to Father Jud is a funny scene. It is also a hostile act of contempt directed at Catholicism, in which confession is a sacred and healing ritual.

 

Wake Up Dead Man includes charismatic stars I'd love to see more of. Alas, most of these stars are given almost nothing to do and their scenes last for mere minutes.

 

Characters behave in ways that contradict their nature. Father Jud wants to "cut Wicks out like a cancer" but then "protects" Wicks by hiding the booze flask. Martha is supposed to be a devout Catholic but she commits murder and suicide, all mortal sins. Martha, Nat, and Sam all hate Wicks enough to murder him, but then stage a fake "resurrection" that would elevate him. These clunky reversals sap any investment I may have had in the plot or the characters.

 

The plot is so implausible that it requires extensive exposition. There's a quote in politics, attributed to Ronald Reagan, "If you're explaining, you're losing." In the world of creative storytelling, storytelling on the page and also onscreen, teachers say to beginners, "Show, don't tell." Dead Man doesn't show; it tells. Father Jud, Benoit Blanc, and, finally, Martha, are constantly explaining. "This happened because this and then this happened because this…" All that exposition became boring.  

 

Wake Up Dead Man is not just an aesthetic product. It is also a political statement, a statement about faith, specifically my faith, Catholicism, and about all Christianity. Dead Man is also a comment on MAGA.

 

I am eager for a film with the high production values of Dead Man that analyzes MAGA. Dead Man is not that film. Wicks is such an over-the-top parody that I can't take him seriously as any comment on anything in the real world. With his obsession with "Harlot Whores," he is closer to Cotton Mather, the Puritan preacher of 17th century Salem witch trial infamy, than anyone today. Johnson's pen, here, is a surprisingly blunt object. Putting the word "modernity" in Wicks' mouth – instead of, say, a more antique word for a preacher's chosen enemy, like the old-fashioned word "incubus" – does nothing to make Wicks at all representational of Trump or any contemporary Christian nationalist.

 

I am a Christian and I am a patriot, and, as such, I am opposed to Christian nationalism. My faith does not demand, for example, as has been said by some Christian nationalists, that Jews would experience fewer rights than Christians. In contrast to Ancient Paganism and also in contrast to Islam, Christianity has always recognized a necessary separation. Jesus instituted the separation of church and state when he said, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's; render unto God that which is God's."

 

I cherish the civil rights I enjoy as an American citizen, and, under some Christian regimes, I, as a Catholic, would not enjoy those rights. In Colonial America, before the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, there were places where, legally, Catholics could not even live, never mind exercise civil rights.

 

Yes, I'd love to view a film that offers a definitive analysis of Christian nationalism. That film would begin with the following events: Jack Phillips, a struggling Christian baker, receives death threats and attempts to shutter his business, Masterpiece Cake Shop. Jack declined to custom design a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding. The gay couple attacking Phillips can purchase any readymade product in his shop; Phillips just won't custom design an original cake. For this, activists around the world try not just to beggar Phillips, but to destroy him. Men compete against women and girls in athletic events, threatening the female competitors' scholarships, safety, prize money, and careers. Trans extremism is so powerful that a SCOTUS justice, in her confirmation hearing, says that she cannot say what the word "woman" means. Politicians, when asked if they support abortion of healthy babies the day before natural delivery, refuse to answer the question. In school curricula, students are taught the false belief that Nazism and Christianity are identical. Islam on the other hand, is exempted from any critical comment, even as Muslim activists and their allies threaten Jews on elite university campuses.

 

No, I don't like Christian nationalism. But I'm not blind. Christian nationalism is a backlash against extremism on the left. If you want to tell the truth about Christian nationalism, you must begin with the leftist extremism that poisoned the soil, allowing the tares of Christian nationalism to take root.

 

Since I love my church, I am an eager consumer of media that shines cleansing sunlight, the best disinfectant, on the church's sins. I am a big fan of 1992's Canadian miniseries The Boys of St. Vincent, the 2015 film Spotlight, and the 2019 Polish documentary Tylko nie mow nikomu, (Tell No One). All three films are unflinching, often difficult-to-watch exposés of the Catholic church sex abuse crisis. So, yes, I would love to see a high-quality film that takes Catholicism seriously and addresses its flaws.

 

Rian Johnson is not and has never been a Catholic, and it shows. Dead Man pretends to be a Catholic film and it is about as Catholic as a Southern Baptist potluck in Tennessee featuring biscuits and gravy and sweet potato pie.

 

Let's just look at the surnames: Wicks, Sharp, Ross, Holt, Scott, Langstrom, Prentice. Dead Man purports to take place in upstate New York. In fact, it was filmed in England. Four of its leads are British. I've prayed in upstate New York, in Schaghticoke, specifically. In this town of 7,400 people, the names on the website of the local Catholic church are Chmeilewski, DeFilippo, Fogarty, Crucetti, and Kacerguis. Polish, Italian, Irish, Italian again, and Lithuanian. No character in Dead Man has a first or last name from any of those ethnicities, or Spanish, African, Vietnamese, or Filipino, all common in today's Catholic church. Johnson's characters are not Catholic.

 

Wicks' church has a conspicuous empty place where a crucifix would normally hang. No. This would not be allowed. The core rule 308 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal requires a crucifix over the altar. "Either on the altar or near it, there is to be a cross, with the figure of Christ crucified upon it … such a cross should remain near the altar even outside of liturgical celebrations."

 

Dead Man is not just unbelievable in its depiction of Catholicism. It is also "Forensically Inaccurate," as a detailed, critical review at the Internet Movie Database reports. This review begins, "In the state of New York, a medico-legal autopsy is mandatory in cases of homicide and is performed by a medical examiner … biological specimens are collected from the body for toxicological analysis." These "would have revealed the presence of the tranquilizer" and solved the murder much quicker. The review continues in this vein, exposing Johnson's central "mystery" as unsupported by facts.

 

Facts don't matter. The point of the film is not to offer a sincere exploration of faith, Catholicism, or MAGA. The point is to bash Catholicism, Catholics, and Christians in general, and to depict Trump voters as zombified.

 

Father Jud falls down repeatedly – not metaphorically, but literally. Metaphorically, he falls apart constantly. He becomes near hysterical. He is a weak man who literally can't "stand" for anything. Did O'Connor do special yoga to play such a pratfalling weakling? If he ever played anything weaker he'd play a plasmodium.

 

Father Jud requires atheist and Christophobe Blanc, to, again and again, lift him up, to rescue him. Before Jud even knows who Blanc is, sweaty, quivering Jud blathers to this stranger about his own failings and begs Blanc for help. Blanc calls Jud "son." He might as well call him "boy." Jud vacillates and is unreliable. Blanc must serve as Jud's spine.

 

Johnson's intentions are transparent. Johnson invented Jud's surname "Duplenticy" for Jud because it sounds like the word "duplicitous," that is, "given to lying." Jud is a liar. Jud himself says so. The film's worshippers cite the scene in the church when Blanc and Jud allegedly "debate" the value of faith. In fact, they debate nothing. Blanc spits on Catholicism as pure evil and lies. Jud doesn't disagree; he merely states that Catholicism's lies – its "storytelling," in his words – make people feel better.

 

Johnson claims he was a Christian in his youth; he lost faith in his twenties and turned to belief in Carl Jung, a twentieth-century Swiss psychiatrist. He describes something of a smooth transition, with no gap. Christianity, he says, is about nothing but storytelling. Jungian beliefs emphasize storytelling.

 

In Dead Man, Johnson posits the New Atheists' most beloved bit of BS dogma: atheists like Blanc are "rational." Christians are "mishigas," that is, Yiddish for "crazy"; they are, as Jud and the Doobie Brothers emphasize, liars who tell comforting lies.

 

Johnson is wrong about his Jungian beliefs. There is more objective support for the history of Christ and early Christianity, as recounted in the New Testament, than for anything Jungians believe. Jesus is the best attested figure of the Ancient world. We have more documents, written closer to the time of the events, that support Jesus as a historical figure who was crucified and whose followers believed him to have risen from the dead, than we have for any other Ancient figure, including those whose existence we never debate, such as Alexander the Great.  

 

There is no objective support for key Jungian beliefs. Jung said that there are "archetypes" that exist in the "collective unconscious" shared by all humans. Jungians attempt to "prove" the existence of archetypes and the collective unconscious by pointing to folklore. All around the world, Jungians insist, in every culture, every person tells the exact same stories, featuring the exact same cast of characters.

 

This is just not true and it's been proven to be inaccurate. Folklorist Alan Dundes points out that there are no universal myths. All humans don't tell the same stories. In short, Johnson rejected Christianity as "irrational," and adopted belief systems, New Atheism and Jungian beliefs, that have been proven wrong.

 

The New Atheist dogma that atheists are "rational" and that Christians are "irrational" has been debunked many times. Do we need to, again (and again and again) mention that Isaac Newton, often cited as one of the most high IQ humans and high-impact scientists ever to live, wrote more about his Christian faith than about science? Do we need to, again (and again and again) cite Copernicus, Gregor Mendel, and yes Galileo, all devout Catholics? And Father Georges Lemaitre, who originated the Big Bang theory? And Xavier Le Pichon, a geophysicist and devout Catholic, who produced a comprehensive model of plate tectonics? And Louis Pasteur, who died with a rosary in his hand? Let me just mention one source: "No Catholic Church; No Scientific Method" by physicist Scott Locklin, here. In spite of their formidable accomplishments, the Ancient Pagans, so beloved by Jungians, never developed the scientific method.

 

The very premise of Dead Man is an attempt to undermine the foundation of Christianity. Jesus rose from the dead. Dead Man argues that zealots can fake resurrections to promote their beliefs. The Eucharist is key to the sacred reenactment of Christ's sacrifice. Dead Man goes out of its way to denigrate the Eucharist when Prentice pretends that swallowing a diamond is equivalent to receiving the Eucharist. Dead Man includes a scene where a scantily clad woman named "Grace" tears a Catholic church apart. Wicks mocks confession with his detailed recounting of his masturbatory practices.

 

Glenn Close will probably receive an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Martha. Close is so ugly in this role I found her almost unwatchable. She is a grotesque gargoyle, part Mrs. Danvers from Hitchcock's Rebecca, part Frau Blucher from Mel Brooks' Frankenstein. This is the Christophobe's idea of a Christian woman.

 

Imagine an American film that depicted a Muslim woman as a mustachioed, ululating, bomb throwing, Koran-quoting murderer. Would that film rack up a 92% score at Rotten Tomatoes? No.

 

Johnson posits two possible versions of Christianity. One is weak Father Jud. Jud can't even carry out basic priestly functions. A priest has the duty to stop a confession if the penitent describes graphic sex acts. Father Jud just sits there pathetically allowing Wicks to abuse him and to desecrate confession. Priests must perform extreme unction as well as funeral masses. These tasks bring them close to the dying and the dead. Jud's falling apart when confronting a dead body is implausible.

 

Johnson presents two kinds of "Christian": Wicks, a vicious cult leader, or Jud, a weak man who, nevertheless, is nice to Louise on the phone. A man, and a Christian, can be both strong and compassionate, self-contained and giving. Jesus models this, and empowers his followers to emulate him.

 

Johnson insists that ideal Christianity, as exemplified by Father Jud, involves only being nice to people, in the same way that Jud was nice to Louise, and telling comforting stories, or not telling harsh truths, as Jud did when he hid Wicks' booze flask.

 

In fact Christianity is far more powerful than Johnson recognizes. Christians believe that God incarnated as a human man, and was tortured and died on the cross for all of us. We believe, as Genesis says, and as Jews also believe, that each person we meet was made in God's image. And both Jews and Christians share the Judeo-Christian central teaching that truth, including tough truths, are our bedrock. The Old Testament prophets would hammer Rian Johnson for his soft-peddling of comfortable lies. Jesus was a Jew who descended from this tradition, and he spoke many harsh truths. His very life, death, and Resurrection is one of the most challenging tough truths of all.

 

Danusha V. Goska is the author of God through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery