Vengeance (2022), starring and directed by BJ Novak.
Good movie with a bad title. Ben, a New York podcaster, is informed his "girlfriend" has died, and her family requests his presence at her funeral. When he arrives, he learns that the girl has been murdered - at least in the eyes of her family. Ben decides to solve the girl's murder and turn it into a podcast, despite the fact she wasn't his girlfriend, but just a girl he hooked up with.
So there is some fish-out-of-water stuff, some NY intellectual in backwater Texas stuff, and some wacky local characterizations (like the extended What a Burger riffs). The tone was hard to maintain, because some people are playing it broadly, like Ashton Kutcher as a record producer, and some are playing pretty straight. Ben is the snarky observer, and they eventually call him on that too.
It's a dark comedy, and some moments are genuinely funny. It's almost in the Duplass brothers' wheelhouse, somewhat tonally like Safety Not Guaranteed, or the Adam Goldberg movie "Untitled". It's well made. The only real gripe with it, is the ending is not earned. The ending is one of those, "did it really happen? Is it just the main character fantasizing?" But whether it happened or whether it was just what Ben felt like doing, it feels like a reshoot. The solution to the mystery
But then Ben shoots Ashton several times, and deletes all the recordings he'd made for the podcast. That is some left field, "hey, we need a snappier ending says the focus group" type of shit.
I enjoyed the movie. There were a couple of really funny moments. When Abby's brother Ty asks Ben to find the killer and help him kill the killer, Ben says he's not in a Liam Neeson movie. Ty says, you do look like a character in a Liam Neeson movie. Then he says, Schindler's List, yeah, you look like a lot of people in that movie (because Ben is Jewish). That cracked me up. Another part, was where Ty tells him where they live. Ben asks if they are near Austin? Ty says, have you heard of Abilene? Ben says no. Ty says, Abilene is about 3 hours from Austin - and then says 'and we're 5 hours from Abilene'. It was funny.
BJ Novak is entertaining, has kind of a Ben Stiller vibe, but not the please-punch-me-in-the-face thing that Stiller often does (and I like Stiller). Ben Stiller meets Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley). I think points get taken away from this score because not only is the ending unearned, but also they keep forgetting this is ostensibly about a young woman who was murdered. There was somewhat of a Lasse Halstrom vibe to the characters, Gilbert Grape sort of thing (and I hated that movie).
7/10
Good movie with a bad title. Ben, a New York podcaster, is informed his "girlfriend" has died, and her family requests his presence at her funeral. When he arrives, he learns that the girl has been murdered - at least in the eyes of her family. Ben decides to solve the girl's murder and turn it into a podcast, despite the fact she wasn't his girlfriend, but just a girl he hooked up with.
So there is some fish-out-of-water stuff, some NY intellectual in backwater Texas stuff, and some wacky local characterizations (like the extended What a Burger riffs). The tone was hard to maintain, because some people are playing it broadly, like Ashton Kutcher as a record producer, and some are playing pretty straight. Ben is the snarky observer, and they eventually call him on that too.
It's a dark comedy, and some moments are genuinely funny. It's almost in the Duplass brothers' wheelhouse, somewhat tonally like Safety Not Guaranteed, or the Adam Goldberg movie "Untitled". It's well made. The only real gripe with it, is the ending is not earned. The ending is one of those, "did it really happen? Is it just the main character fantasizing?" But whether it happened or whether it was just what Ben felt like doing, it feels like a reshoot. The solution to the mystery
is that Abby OD'd and Ashton Kutcher took her to a spot in the desert that is disputed jurisdiction between 4 agencies, and left her to die. It's a pretty downbeat ending. Ben learns this because Ashton confesses.
I enjoyed the movie. There were a couple of really funny moments. When Abby's brother Ty asks Ben to find the killer and help him kill the killer, Ben says he's not in a Liam Neeson movie. Ty says, you do look like a character in a Liam Neeson movie. Then he says, Schindler's List, yeah, you look like a lot of people in that movie (because Ben is Jewish). That cracked me up. Another part, was where Ty tells him where they live. Ben asks if they are near Austin? Ty says, have you heard of Abilene? Ben says no. Ty says, Abilene is about 3 hours from Austin - and then says 'and we're 5 hours from Abilene'. It was funny.
BJ Novak is entertaining, has kind of a Ben Stiller vibe, but not the please-punch-me-in-the-face thing that Stiller often does (and I like Stiller). Ben Stiller meets Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley). I think points get taken away from this score because not only is the ending unearned, but also they keep forgetting this is ostensibly about a young woman who was murdered. There was somewhat of a Lasse Halstrom vibe to the characters, Gilbert Grape sort of thing (and I hated that movie).
7/10
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