Knives Out 3 Makes It Clear: 2025 Is The Year Of Josh Brolin

Major spoilers for Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery" follow. There are also some light spoilers for "Weapons."

I'm not making waves when I say Josh Brolin is a very, very good actor. That's been true for a long time. A "nepo baby" from a time before we even used the term "nepo baby" — his dad is actor James Brolin, and his stepmother is Barbara Streisand — the younger Brolin rose to prominence thanks to "The Goonies" in 1985 before fading from prominence for a while and then making an incredibly strong return in 2007 with "No Country for Old Men." In the years since then, Brolin has appeared in everything from the Marvel Cinematic Universe — most notably in "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame" as the über-villain Thanos — to Denis Villeneuve's "Dune" adaptations (in which he plays Atreides weapons master Gurney Halleck). Now, in 2025, Brolin is getting some major time in the spotlight thanks in large part to his appearance in not one, not two, but three blockbuster movies this year: Zach Cregger's "Weapons," Edgar Wright's "The Running Man," and Rian Johnson's "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery." 

As of this writing, I, quite unfortunately, haven't seen "The Running Man" yet, so I'll regrettably have to omit that from my discussion. Still, even without that movie, Brolin is having a banner year by any standards. From his loudly grieving dad in "Weapons" to his unbelievably rude and offensive Catholic monsignor in "Wake Up Dead Man," Brolin is showing off his range, and we're all better for it, because aside from "The Running Man," he gets to play around with two totally different characters in two very different movies.

It's important for me to note that because of delays caused by the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike, Zach Cregger's sophomore feature film "Weapons" ended up recasting almost everybody save for Austin Abrams (who plays the down-and-out James, perhaps the film's funniest character). That includes the role of Archer Graff, who was originally going to be played by Pedro Pascal before the star had to drop out due to his commitments to Marvel's "Fantastic Four" film. After Pascal parted ways with the project, Brolin signed on. As much as I truly love Pascal, I'm so glad that Brolin ended up playing Archer. 

We only see Archer, at first — in the chapter dedicated to elementary school teacher Justine Gandy (Julia Garner), whose entire class of students disappeared mysteriously one night save for one boy — from behind and in profile as he gets angry at a parent-teacher meeting, but before long, we get to his chapter. There, we see a portrait of a profoundly broken man grieving his lost son (one of the kids who ran into the night for reasons nobody knows just yet), who sleeps in his son's abandoned bed amidst a growing divide with his wife. Desperate to find his kid, Archer's fury and bluster is always rooted in reality, because you know all he wants is to find his son and bring him home. (Also, after a nightmare in his son's bed, Brolin, as Archer, delivers one of the very best line readings of the year.)

The amazing thing about Brolin's Archer and his Jefferson Wicks is how distinct they are; even when Archer is being a jerk, you still root for him. Jefferson? Not so much.

Archer Graff in "Weapons" is a bit brusque, but it's for a decidedly noble cause; Monsignor Jefferson Wicks is a total jerk to everyone for basically no reason at all. In "Wake Up Dead Man," Jefferson Wicks — who runs a church called Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude that "welcomes" new reverend Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor) at the start of the movie — is a small-minded and genuinely cruel man who preaches hatred and bigotry to his flock, keeping them complacent yet frightened of his power as he gleefully drives away newcomers. (One of the most memorably and expertly deployed montages in the movie features Jefferson's raging sermons in complete silence while people affected by his words, including queer couples and single mothers, flee Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude in obvious distress.) He's hypocritical (fathered a secret illegitimate son and bullied a man into taking the blame), mean (psychologically torments Jud constantly), and even violent (he throws a Bible at Jud in one scene).

On some level, these two characters sound sort of similar, but they are decidedly not. Archer's humanity frequently comes through even as he's frothing at the mouth to find the person who's responsible for his son's disappearance, but Jefferson has basically no semblance of humanity anymore as a man who's been raised on spite, resentment, and pure vitriol (I mean, the guy exclusively refers to his late mother as the "harlot whore" because she had him out of wedlock!). Brolin is a master of his craft, and I'm happy to see that the world has finally realized this. "Weapons" is streaming on HBO Max now, and "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery" is now on Netflix.