Vengeance turns a podcaster’s ambitions into an interrogation of myth
B.J. Novak's feature film directorial debut showcases a satirist with a uniquely self-inquisitive eye and an unsettled soul
Film Reviews Vengeance
Underneath the steady, noisy onslaught of modern genre movies, there are films attempting to engage with the real world as we recognize and experience it. Rare are the films which seem at war, thematically, with themselves, but it’s this indulgence of actual ideas alongside their violent confrontation and arguable rejection that powers Vengeance. Writer-director-star B.J. Novak’s intriguing fish-out-of-water black comedy uses a true-crime angle as a comfortable framing device about myth, storytelling, social misunderstanding and dislocation, and how they all feed a new American rancor. If the end result is not always completely successful, Novak crafts an alluringly confounding work that confirms his intelligence and thoughtfulness as a filmmaker.
Ben Manalowitz (Novak) is a “blue check mark” writer for the New Yorker with loose aspirations of expanding his storytelling instincts into podcasting. He is also, per some cold-open, night-out banter with a likeminded friend (John Mayer, in a cameo), fairly rootless—a young professional for whom dating anyone longer than one month is, like the intended use of cookie dough, merely a suggestion.
When a girl with whom he had casually hooked up several times, Abby Shaw (Lio Tipton), is found dead of a drug overdose, Ben gets cornered by her brother Ty (Boyd Holbrook) into attending the funeral in West Texas. Her family, it turns out, believes Ben was her boyfriend. When Ty reveals his conviction, based only on his “gut,” that Abby was in fact murdered, Ben senses a chance to dig into the type of conspiracy-mongering which seems to be driving a lot of societal division.
Seizing on this pitch (a dead white girl being presented herein, not incorrectly, as “the holy grail of podcast” subjects), Ben’s producer friend Eloise (Issa Rae) offers up encouragement and feedback. As Ben is absorbed into the welcoming bosom of Abby’s extended family, including mother Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron) and sisters Paris (Isabella Amara) and Kansas City (Dove Cameron), he undertakes interviews with various at-odds law enforcement agencies before connecting with other figures in Abby’s life, including record producer Quentin (Ashton Kutcher) and an old middle-school friend, Sancholo (Zach Villa), who’s drifted into drug dealing.
To hang Vengeance with the “calling card movie” tag isn’t entirely appropriate, since while this is Novak’s feature film directorial debut, he’s a well-established TV writer and episodic director who has also been a continuing presence in American households via heavy rotation reruns and streaming availability of The Office. But it could, or should, prove Novak capable of handling larger-budgeted fare, should he so desire.
His writing here is for the most part clear and purpose-driven. Only a couple scenes or ideas don’t connect; one strand finds characters using the same language to describe Abby, which is meant to signify one thing but actually tracks as another. And if he lapses on occasion into having characters simply deliver ideas plainly to one another, Novak also eschews low-hanging fruit characterizations, pulling comedy from sharp divisions in perspective rather than empty eccentricities.
As a filmmaker, Novak has a decent eye for composition, and communicating a story with background. Cinematographer Lyn Moncrief, shooting New Mexico as a stand-in for Texas, does a good job of capturing desolate spaces, which help reinforce subtextual statements about the contrast between relative values of what is often seen as either empty or full.
As a director of actors, Novak’s tapping of his old Punk’d boss Kutcher is inspired, resulting in the latter’s best performance in years. He coaxes believably grounded turns out of the rest of his cast, too, abetted by understated dialogue. The multi-hyphenate also delivers a good performance. While he gives himself a couple good lines, which highlight Ben’s active mind, he also leans into moments of quiet reaction. The latter is particularly evident in a nice scene where he settles into Abby’s room, silently taking in the details of her personal belongings.
Even though it tells a simple story, Vengeance amply demonstrates that a film’s true ambition has nothing to do with budget or production scale. Among some of the movie’s heady notions the movie attempts to assay are the idea and consequences of people living in their own highly individualized spaces; the question of whether any truth can be embedded in pure intuition; and the empty distractions of collapsing civilization, in which culture is relegated to increasingly meaningless fragmentary morsels.
With this in mind, Vengeance tries to strike a balance between its investigatory plotting and broader sociological inventorying—to frequently uneven effect. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s the former which suffers most. Crucially, the film’s big stabs at emotional payoff feel miscalculated, and slightly off-center.
Ben’s grappling with his preconceptions is well modulated and interwoven throughout—a strength of the film. But when he learns the truth about a crucial fact, it ignites an argument that quickly escalates and then unrealistically resolves, fueling a hurried final 20 minutes. To discuss the film’s ending, even fairly broadly, is to undercut a significant portion of what it wants to say. One element is utterly obvious, but the other is not, demanding a deeper unpacking of after-effect than is granted.
The end result is something which isn’t so much lost in the edit (though Novak’s use of three editors would seem to possibly indicate some level of exploration here) as just mis-framed. Would Vengeance benefit from a massive rethinking, and a specific moment of action being pulled forward to the end of its second act? Does it need only five to 10 more minutes? Or is it simply an idea fundamentally best served by the extra breathing room a limited series would afford, crammed instead into the too-small confines of a feature film?
The answer to those questions is ultimately in the eye of the beholder. But the tonal balance Novak achieves throughout his film offsets this concluding dissatisfaction and brands other shortcomings interesting missteps rather than true failures. Only Murders In The Building, which uses a podcast’s production to also examine human connection and isolation, has of course tackled some of these same themes. But Vengeance does so with greater perspicacity, and more emotional weight and resonance. Even if not all of it works, it’s a film which showcases a satirist with a uniquely self-inquisitive eye, and an unsettled soul.
22 Comments
Why are AVClub movie reviews so loooong now?I come here to get an idea if the movie is worth seeing or not, but in the past year or so (since the Chicago->LA move?), the reviews seem to have gotten a lot longer and start digging into details that are probably best saved for a post-movie discussion.This review is like twice as long as it needs to be. Is this some kind of directive from the new management?
I come here to get an idea if the movie is worth seeing or notI find that reading the text up to the info graphic and grade gives me enough to tell me that. You can stop reading the rest if all you need is the cast, grade, and a synopsis to know whether it’s worth your time and money.
Speaking of the info section, why have release date and release venues been removed??
Hopefully just an oversight to be corrected going forward.
This review is painfully overwritten.
And badly, too. “Abetted,” I mean, come on, that only has a negative connotation. And surely one word could be found for “alluringly confounding” (I dunno, “intriguing”?).
Because they don’t have editors. The writer has some talent but desperately needs an editor.
It is inevitable that when things change, some people will like the changes, and some people will not. Personally, I really like the long reviews.
it took me like 4 minutes to read how busy are you.
Is this very long? A.A. Dowd’s last review, of The Batman, was 1170 words. That’s a far longer than his first review of Iron Man 3* at 505 words, but it’s about a hundred words longer than this one. Maybe you could argue that The Batman deserves more space than a smaller movie like this (I’d disagree), or maybe you could argue that this review just doesn’t need to be this long (I couldn’t tell you, I haven’t read it yet), but I think it’s been way longer than a year since reviews regularly clocked in at under 600 words.
I mean, I’m not defending the editorial sinkhole this place has been in for four years or so, but some of those changes include far fewer “post-movie discussions” and virtually no spoiler spaces (Since I almost want to say Game of Thrones ending). The lack of any real editors sucks, but it’s those kind of topics that generated a lot of the best engagement on the site, so it makes sense that the people reviewing things here would have integrated them into the reviews themselves if they’ve been instructed not to create those topics anymore.
*I think it’s possible that the AV Club was available in print at this point. That would have necessitated more severe editing, but frankly when a review is good, I think a little longer is better.
Of all the criticism against Herb-era AV Club, I didn’t expect it to include “excessively in-depth reviews.”
AV Club readers will complain about everything and anything that absolutely no one is twisting their greasy ham hock to read, won’t they?
I don’t read reviews until after I see the movie, and read the reviews to see what other people think of the film. So I appreciate the long reviews, even though (like this one) I’m not entirely sure what they actually say.
I wish the reviewer had mentioned whether he liked or disliked “The Premise”, which I had high hopes for but turned out to be absolute crap, with occasional exceptions. If this is anything like that I don’t want any part of this.
I was expecting a reference to it, with a link to the AV Club’s review.https://www.avclub.com/b-j-novak-s-disappointing-anthology-the-premise-tackle-1847632800
bj novak must look at paul downs and feel like downs is the t-1000 coming after him.
Who knew Ashton Kutcher’s dream was to play Burt Reynolds.
I don’t have a specific episode to point at but I seem to recall Kelso admiring Burt a few times.
he’s also done like 80 episodes of a show that’s literally called ‘the ranch’
The last half of the trailer leans pretty hard into “laugh at the Texas hicks” territory. I’m assuming that’s more a function of the trailer than the film, given the reviewer’s description of “a satirist with a uniquely self-inquisitive eye, and an unsettled soul”, but even so doesn’t really sell me on this.
Here’s my review: OOF! NO!
“Vengeance” is an After School Special of the “can’t-we-all-just-get-along?” variety (or maybe that Star Trek episode with Frank Gorshin as the black and white guy.) Kutcher is actually the highlight even if his role is like someone that walked in from another movie. There are some wildly inconsistent vibes throughout. It opens with a jokey, hammy comedy sketch before it shifts to some dire plot point that you are not sure if you’re supposed to laugh at or be appalled by. That pendulum swings for the whole endeavor. The ending is…sorta interesting? But it’s really hard to discuss without…you know!
I watched this movie with a very critical eye because I came in prepared to hate it and make fun of it… which I did. Many parts of it were dogshit awful. However, there were a couple surprises and also BJN can write some hilarious jokes. I respected his ambition but ultimately this movie fucking sucked. Most of why it sucked is because of the ham-fisted cheesy lame pretentious political/cultural/social commentary. The AVC reviewer says BJN didn’t go for low-hanging fruit in this regard but I have to disagree. Whataburger, guns, family, anti-Semitic jokes to show how dumb and simple the Texans are, conspiracy theories, moments of surprising intelligence from the hick family, BJN learning valuable southern lessons he couldn’t learn in Brooklyn… It was all so predictable as an observation on the state of the country and the North v the South and Republicans v Dems that I was embarrassed for BJN because he seemed to think it was so smart. (Even though there were a few really funny jokes, which is why he should stick to writing one liners for 30 minute sitcoms). It honestly made me despise the movie and distracted from the other parts that were actually OK. Felt like I was watching a movie written by someone who jerks off to the New Yorker/NPR… which makes sense since BJN’s character works for the New Yorker and also who shows up in the end of the movie but fucking TERRY GROSS herself.The actual murder mystery story was mediocre but not terrible. However, it was so dragged down by the cultural/political observations that sometimes it was confusing and other times it felt like it was being dictated by what his culture commentary required. Also there was lots of cheesy dialogue and overwrought drama that it felt pretty lame. I will say I liked the end, which surprised me!The best part of the movie for me (besides the jokes) was the criticism of True Crime podcasting/sleazy journalism, which was pretty basic and predictable, but also not terrible. This part felt more like BJN criticizing something he’s more familiar with as opposed to like… Texas culture, which as I mentioned came off as completely preachy and elitist. Unfortunately, this media criticism element of the movie was mostly unearned. It didn’t really come together until the very end when BJN shoehorned the ultimate lesson in in a pretty cheesy sequence. Good attempt though.The fourth element of this movie would be the “meta element.” This is where BJN plays himself and throughout the whole film teaches the audience a lesson about not only making assumptions about rednecks in Texas, but also about his film. I think he figured people would assume he would swerve one way and watch him learn a valuable lesson from the hicks and go home to Brooklyn, when actually something else happens (won’t spoil it). Unfortunately, while I like the idea of the meta commentary, he’s way less clever than he thinks he is and it makes this element of the movie pretty sad. And ultimately it doesn’t work because my assumption going into this movie was that it would suck and it did.My recommendation to BJN would be to completely ditch the cultural/political commentary because it was so bad and obviously out of his element. Pretentious, predictable, not as smart as he thinks it is. If he would have focused on the media criticism/murder story, which are more in his wheelhouse, I could have seen this working out to be a nearly-OK movie and not a dogshit one. Also, Ashton Kutcher showing up was so awful. Right when I thought this shit couldn’t get any worse there was Ashton Kutcher playing the *intelligent Texan!* A notable highlight of this movie was the 5 different law enforcement agencies trying to pass off jurisdictional authority, which was both hilarious and accurate.Sorry for the rant! Thank you for the review.