Movie Review: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)

Subtitled: A Knives Out Mystery

Genre: Murder Mystery  
Director: Rian Johnson  

Starring: Daniel Craig, Josh O'Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner  
Running Time: 144 minutes  

Synopsis: Young priest and former boxer Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor) is assigned to an upstate New York parish where Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) presides over a small congregation. Jud finds Wicks' behaviour intentionally boorish, and meets Wicks' loyal assistant Martha (Glenn Close) and regular attendees including lawyer Vera (Kerry Washington), her adopted son and failed politician Cy, despondent doctor Nat (Jeremy Renner), a fading author, and a cellist with a health ailment (Cailee Spaeny). When a murder is committed, local police chief Geraldine (Mila Kunis) and renowned private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) investigate.  

What Works Well: The second sequel is both more intimate and more ambitious. Writer and director Rian Johnson finds a brooding church setting to host personal agendas and broader societal commentary, and wisely de-emphasizes detective Blanc in favour of a conflicted main protagonist in Father Jud. Carrying heavy luggage from the past (he killed a man in the boxing ring) and confronted by the spooky history of his new parish and an unhinged Monsignor Wicks, Jud stumbles upon a compelling mystery. Josh O'Connor and Josh Brolin are effective counterpoints across compassion and delusion, and beneath the murder plot resides clever discourse about the role of organized religion, from comforting those in need to raising the sword in battles real and imagined.

What Does Not Work As Well: The running time is undisciplined in an attempt to cram in a few too many sub-stories. Beyond the main characters, most of the cast members never move beyond "making up the numbers". 

Key Quote:

Father Jud: You're right. It's storytelling. The rites and the rituals. Costumes, all of it. It's storytelling. I guess the question is, do these stories convince us of a lie? Or do they resonate with something deep inside us that's profoundly true, that we can't express any other way except storytelling?

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Movie Review: Challengers (2024)

Genre: Romantic Tennis Drama  

Director: Luca Guadagnino  

Starring: Zendaya, Josh O'Connor, Mike Faist  

Running Time: 131 minutes  

Synopsis: In the lead-up to the US Open, tennis tour superstar Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) meets unheralded Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor) in a warm-up event final. Watching them both is Art's wife and coach Tashi Duncan (Zendaya). Flashbacks reveal their backstory starting from 13 years prior, when youth players Art and Patrick were best friends and doubles partners. They both fall in love with rising women's youth player Tashi, and she starts dating the more talented Patrick. When an injury curtails her progress, Tashi turns to coaching and marries Art, whose career is taking off. Patrick's lackadaisical personality prevents him from fulfilling his potential, but he never gives up his pursuit of Tashi.

What Works Well: A love triangle within the tennis world, this is a stylish sport-as-a-metaphor-for-life drama, contrasting a winning obsession with a more relaxed attitude. Art (effort complementing talent) and Patrick (indolence eroding potential) are destined to only compete early and late in their careers, but off the court they sustain an often covert and nasty rivalry for Tashi. She is plotting her own moves with a single-minded pursuit of being on the winning side, whether playing or coaching. The three-way machinations contain enough attitudinal thorns to sustain attention.

What Does Not Work As Well: The close-up shots, scene prolongations, and dizzying time jumps are carried to excess, resulting in an unnecessarily bloated running length and jumbled storytelling. Tashi is stubbornly one-dimensional in her single-minded determination to win in-person or by proxy, and ultimately all three main characters lean into their most distasteful and selfish traits, shedding empathy like sweat on a hot match day.

Key Quote:

Tashi (to Patrick): You are the most egotistical person I have ever met in my life.



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