Post by Dracula on Aug 30, 2022 19:51:59 GMT -5
Vengeance(8/3/2022)
It is rather annoying that Hollywood is so focused on tentpoles that it feels like a downright novelty when a movie like B. J. Novak’s Vengeance, which is largely a dialogue driven satire, opens in wide release without any award aspirations and without playing the indie platforming game it feels like a downright novelty. The film, Novak’s directorial effort and also starring that alumnus of The Office, is about a freelance writer from New York who stumbles upon a story of a lifetime when he learns that his “girlfriend” had died of an overdose in Texas. The catch is that this woman is not actually his girlfriend, she’s just someone he hooked up with a couple of times, but she apparently told her family they were more serious than they were and they called him as a next of kin. Upon arrival he learns that this woman’s brother believes she was actually murdered and enlists him to investigate, which he’s happy to do because he thinks it has the makings of a good true crime podcast along the lines of something like “Serial” or “Shittown” that would highlight certain aspects of the culture wars that interests him. The film does not necessarily play out like a broad comedy as it does take its story fairly seriously and plays it pretty straight, but it’s certainly interested in finding the humorous side of the protagonist’s fish-out-of-water status in rural Texas. I think the film has kind of a lousy title for what it is; “Vengeance” gives the impression this is some sort of Liam Neeson thriller, an actor and genre that’s at the center of one of the film’s more amusing gags, but clashes of culture are plainly more of a predominant theme here than revenge is. I think the movie could have stood to maybe be 15%-20% more funny and a bit less on-the-nose than it gets at time in its analysis of the cultural rivalries at play before it could really turn into something special, but it’s a watchable enough effort.
*** out of Five
It is rather annoying that Hollywood is so focused on tentpoles that it feels like a downright novelty when a movie like B. J. Novak’s Vengeance, which is largely a dialogue driven satire, opens in wide release without any award aspirations and without playing the indie platforming game it feels like a downright novelty. The film, Novak’s directorial effort and also starring that alumnus of The Office, is about a freelance writer from New York who stumbles upon a story of a lifetime when he learns that his “girlfriend” had died of an overdose in Texas. The catch is that this woman is not actually his girlfriend, she’s just someone he hooked up with a couple of times, but she apparently told her family they were more serious than they were and they called him as a next of kin. Upon arrival he learns that this woman’s brother believes she was actually murdered and enlists him to investigate, which he’s happy to do because he thinks it has the makings of a good true crime podcast along the lines of something like “Serial” or “Shittown” that would highlight certain aspects of the culture wars that interests him. The film does not necessarily play out like a broad comedy as it does take its story fairly seriously and plays it pretty straight, but it’s certainly interested in finding the humorous side of the protagonist’s fish-out-of-water status in rural Texas. I think the film has kind of a lousy title for what it is; “Vengeance” gives the impression this is some sort of Liam Neeson thriller, an actor and genre that’s at the center of one of the film’s more amusing gags, but clashes of culture are plainly more of a predominant theme here than revenge is. I think the movie could have stood to maybe be 15%-20% more funny and a bit less on-the-nose than it gets at time in its analysis of the cultural rivalries at play before it could really turn into something special, but it’s a watchable enough effort.
*** out of Five
