← The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
Fr. Mike Schmitz Reacts to "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery"
00:06:32
Fr. Mike jumps into the mystery of Knives Out, not to solve the murder but to understand the truest mission of the priesthood. In the midst of Hollywood's fascination with Catholicism, they've often had trouble capturing an honest representation of Catholics. However, Fr. Mike explores the success of Rian Johnson's appropriate casting and display of a priest in the midst of impossible odds. Find out what Fr. Mike loved about the film and why he thinks, this time, Hollywood got it right!
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Making this is not an endorsement of the movie. The reason why I wanted to make this video is because of two scenes. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension Presents. At the end of 2025, a movie was released. It is the third of Rian Johnson's Knives Out Mysteries. This one is called Wake Up Dead Man. It centers around a Catholic parish in, I think, upstate New York. The two kind of protagonists are two priests. The people involved in this mostly are Catholics. This is not a movie that you would say, huddle around the TV and watch this movie during the Christmas season and the holiday. I'm not recommending this movie. It is PG 13. I would give it an R rating. This is not made by Angel Studios. So after that being said, here we go. Hollywood still has not yet figured out how to depict faithful Catholics on screen or zealous Catholics on screen or. They don't know how Catholics talk. Almost always they end up sounding like a Southern Baptist. Have you noticed that? Just the words that they have in, like, a Catholic mouth is like, we wouldn't sound. Say those things. I just. It's so strange. And I get it. These are like caricatures of certain kinds of Catholics or certain kinds of religious people. Sometimes I think we. We say other weird things. We don't just say those weird things. Okay. Number two, the old priest is kind of a. A bad priest. Keep that in mind. The young priest is a good priest. I think this was kind of interesting. Sometimes when they have the old priest, young priest juxtaposition, it's because the old priest is, like, really faithful. And. And the young priest is, like, more kind of unorthodox. And. And that's not the case. The old priest is. He's really mean. He's not more or less orthodox. And the young priest isn't unorthodox. I like how they did this. The first image you have of the young priest, Father Judd, is he's punching out a deacon. And you get to know that, oh, he was a boxer before he went to seminary. All these kind of things had a. Has some brokenness in his past and even his own heart, but. But the thing that makes you endearing. Endear to him. Endear to him. The thing that makes him endearing is not that he's. Well, he's unorthodox. It's the fact that, oh, he has all of the same attraction to violence as the older priest has. When it comes to the older priest just. He just rouses up a bunch of, like, anger. Well, Amongst his. Amongst, like, the faithful parishioners, Father Judd. He has it in him to fight. That's why you see him punching at someone at the very beginning of the movie. But he doesn't want to. In fact, he says, I don't want to be a. I don't want to fight the world. We're here to serve the world, not beat it. That's what Christ did. But when he encounters our brokenness, what does Jesus do? He fights the devil. He wants to heal, right? He wants to reconcile us to the Father. That's. That's the mission of Jesus. And if I had any takeaway from this movie, it's that here's the director, Rian Johnson, the maker of this movie, who portrays these two priests. One is saying, you know what? We have to fight the world, so we have to be on the inside. And the younger priest saying, jesus came to heal the world, so we need to, like, reach out. But that's. That's too cheap of a description. Here's Father Judd, and he is one of the suspects for the murder of Monsignor Wicks, the older priest. And so he's with Benoit Blanc and the local sheriff. And one of the scenes, they. He has to call someone to get on the phone and say, hey, could you tell us who ordered this certain thing that happened? You know, from your. From your company, from your business, from your organization? And this woman on the phone, her name is Louise. And she answers, and he's like, it's really important we get this, you know, importantly, get this information, because we need to know who it was who. Who called you and da, da, da, da. And come back as soon as you can, right? And then there's a pause, and she's like, father, will you pray for me? Yeah, of course. Can I ask what for? And she just unburdens herself. She talks about her. I think it was. She had harsh words with her mother, who's. Who's slipping mentally. And you see this image of this priest who. This. During the movie in the mov. What we know is he's a sleuth, right? He's working with Benoit Blanc. He's working with the sheriff. He's trying to solve the crime. And at this moment in the movie, it's like, wait, oh, that's not why I exist. I don't exist. To solve the crime. He can solve the crime. She can solve the crime. I'm a priest. And there's someone on the phone right now who doesn't need a detective. They need a priest. You get the sense that he's on the phone with her for a long time. And even he points out, the character. Points out, like, that's. That's what I. That's what I do. That's what I need to be doing. And there's something about that that's, I think, applicable for all of us. I find myself at times thinking, I need to fix all the problems of the world. I need. What I need to do is I need to solve all of the issues that are happening. I need to comment on all things. I need to be the detective. The detective solving the crime. And then someone shows up and you realize, oh, no, what they. What they need is. For me, in my case, what they need is, oh, they need a priest. They don't need someone who has opinions on everything under the sun. They just need Jesus. And I realized that's all of us. How often is our temptation to say, okay, there's this. This. I need to. I need to weigh in. I mean, the Monsignor Wicks and his. And his congregation there, his parish, who just, like, they're angry at the world. They want to fight it. We're supposed to fight injustice. That's what we're called to do. But we are also called to love the person in front of us. Anyone can be angry. Anyone can fight. And again, there's a time for that. But I have to sometimes be reminded that just like Father Judd, like, oh, I'm not a detective. I don't have to solve this crime. I need to care for this person in front of me. I don't need to make this point and win. What I need to do is put my stuff down in love. That was really powerful. And I think that was the thing I was like, I need to comment and highlight this thing even in a. In a. In a movie that is. Again, I can't recommend to all ages and wouldn't recommend to all ages, but there's something in there that was a reminder to me. The point is taking care of people and God's mercy, which I did not expect. I did not expect that. I will say this, though. I will say this, that even though in some ways the point is mercy and forgiveness, I don't think I can forgive Rian Johnson for ruining Luke Skywalker as a character. Other than that. Huh? Kind of like the movie. Anyways, from Almost Here to Session presents. My name's Father Mike. God bless.