Justin Chang

Unfortunately, he's forced to work under Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, whom Josh Brolin plays as an angry fundamentalist firebrand.

spewing hatred and contempt for gay people, single moms, and the entire hell-bound secular world.

Although Wicks' behavior has reduced church attendance, he's surrounded himself with a small group of loyalists.

The most devoted is Martha, who keeps the church running.

She's played by an amusingly nosy Glenn Close.

There's also Kerry Washington as a sharp-witted attorney, and Jeremy Renner as a sad-sack alcoholic doctor.

Kaylee Spaney plays a famous cellist who donates large sums to the church in hopes that God will heal her chronic pain.

Two characters feel like sharp, cynical jabs at American conservatism –

One is a formerly liberal writer, played by Andrew Scott, who's since drifted rightward.

The other is a failed young Republican politician turned aspiring YouTuber, played by Daryl McCormick.

With the best of intentions, Judd tries hard to break Wicks' hold on his flock and lead them into deeper faith in God.

But he succeeds only in making an even greater enemy of the Monsignor.

And when Wicks is fatally stabbed in the church, and on Good Friday, no less, suspicion immediately falls on Judd.

But Judd insists that he's innocent.

And before long, the private investigator, Benoit Blanc, played once again by Daniel Craig with a courtly southern drawl, comes knocking.

Blanc believes that Judd is innocent and enlists him to help solve the murder, which won't be easy.

Wicks is the victim of what is known in detective fiction as an impossible crime, one that seems to defy rational explanation.

At one point, Blanc gives Judd and the audience a crash course in the work of John Dixon Carr, the undisputed master of the impossible crime novel.

Since Carr is another of my favorite writers, Johnson's next-level genre geekery almost had me levitating out of my seat.

Wake Up Deadman may not be the best movie I've seen this year, but in some ways, and I don't often say this kind of thing, it feels like the movie that was made most for me.