I remember it like it was yesterday. I was fourteen or so, and my Macedonian youth group used every piece of furniture we could find to set up our usual meeting space like a movie theater for the first Christian film many in the room had ever seen. We watched. We ate. We laughed. And when Josh, the film’s plucky Christian college student, finally ousted his cruel professor’s anti-Christian logic in the climax of the film, we literally applauded. For a room full of Macedonian teens, many of whom were the only Christians in their entire high schools, it felt so comforting to finally see someone on their side win the day.
“God’s Not Dead” was exactly the film that those teens needed in that moment of time.
It is not the film that American Christians need today.
“Wake Up Dead Man,” the newest installment in Rian Johnson’s mystery film series, is not an inherently Christian film. It was not made by Christians, nor does it follow any of the Christian film standards, and it has enough sexual innuendos and bad language to more than warrant its PG-13 rating. It is a film with teeth. It is a film that bites.
It is the film that American Christians need today.
Let me explain.
Jud Duplenticy, the main character in “Wake Up Dead Man,” is a Catholic Priest. A former boxer, he shares much of the same zeal and passion for his faith as Josh in “God’s Not Dead.” Both of them are sent into a hostile environment. Both of them must face an authority figure that tests them to their core. And, ultimately, both of them must decide whether to take the easy road out (the one that would preserve their future and reputation) or to trust in the higher road that God has called them to.
The difference? One of them is living in a dishonest world.
The world of “God’s Not Dead” is the kind that makes for the perfect Christian motivational message. Every good person is a Christian. Every bad person is an atheist. When Josh’s atheist professor speaks on his beliefs, the movie does not take them seriously. As Christians, we all know that this professor is wrong, so there is no point in entertaining him. He does not exist to give Josh an opposing viewpoint to debate. He exists to give him a villain to beat.
“Wake Up Dead Man” refuses to be so simple. Drawing from his own life experience as someone who walked away from his childhood faith, writer and director Rian Johnson approaches his characters not as embodiments of arguments but as full people. The caring detective who helps Jud Duplenticy prove his innocence? An atheist. The twisted authority figure who uses his power to manipulate those under his thumb? Another priest. Rather than creating a film for the express purpose of letting someone with his own beliefs defeat their opposition, Johnson made a story that illuminates the good and the bad that can come from believers and acknowledges that both are true.
“Wake Up Dead Man” is a movie in which no one converts. No character changes their entire worldview, and no one looks at the camera and tells audiences what the truth is. It is a movie where radicalized and politicized Christianity splits a community to its core, drawing out and amplifying the very worst in human nature. But it is also a movie with a lead character who demonstrates Christ’s love and compassion for the lost more deeply than any ‘Christian’ film that I have ever seen.
When Jud Duplenticy pauses the investigation to pray for a random grieving woman over the phone, it isn’t taken lightly. When he endures ridicule and isolation and torment for living out Biblical love to his flock, it shows a strength beyond mere human capacity. And when, at the end of the film, he gives a dying sinner their final confession, the film earns the reverence and sacredness of the moment – not because Jud’s status as a Christian makes him better than everyone else, but because, by being the only character to truly live out his faith, there is no denying the light that he brings.
American Christians are so easily validated. There are infinite songs, films and news channels to make us comfortable in the worldview that we are right and the world is crazy. We don’t need “God’s Not Dead” to give us a victory over our persecutors. Instead, we need “Wake Up Dead Man” to remind us that we were never called to prove ourselves right, but to be a light and reflection of Christ’s love, even in the darkest of places.
