"There are only so many ways to surprise in the construction of a murder mystery, which is why the set-up of Wake Up Dead Man is understood from the start and goes so far as to cite its sources: Here is a locked-room murder, a la John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man, and, as we all know, there are only four ways to commit a theoretically possible locked-room murder. If you don't know, the movie will teach it to you."
"By nature of the genre, the ending of the movie is understood as well: As a romance ends with a happily ever after and a comedy-at least Shakespearean style-ends with a marriage, every whodunnit will end with who did it. Even the ways you can be surprised are understood: It was the person who hired the detective! All of the suspects were in on it! It was the murdered person herself!"
Wake Up Dead Man opens with an explicitly cited locked-room murder, invoking John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man and enumerating the four theoretically possible locked-room methods. The film instructs the audience in those methods while establishing genre expectations that every whodunnit will ultimately reveal who did it and that common surprise outcomes are limited. The traditional mystery franchise must innovate by complicating twists enough to surprise without being unfair. The detective must outsmart everyone yet remain charming and believable. Rian Johnson's Benoit Blanc is dapper, heavily Southern-accented, and paired with an ordinary intellectual foil.
Read at Defector
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