Vengeance: Film Review
I loved some of The Office episodes B.J. Novak wrote so I felt confident about his directorial debut Vengeance, which he wrote and also stars in, and I thought it was good – but not amazing.
In this comedy, Novak stars as Ben, a New York journalist with commitment issues looking to land a meaty podcast series. Out of the blue, he receives a call from Ty (Boyd Holbrook), who informs Ben that his girlfriend has died. What girlfriend? Ben has a roster of women for hookups in his phone but no significant other. It turns out that Abilene/Abby (Lio Tipton) told her family in Texas he was her boyfriend and they want him at the funeral.
After the service, Ty asks Ben for his help in finding who killed Abby as he is certain she didn’t die of a drug overdose. Ben, realising that a meaty story has landed in his lap, gets commissioned to make a podcast by Eloise (Issa Rae) and stays in Texas to work the case.
The concept of Vengeance is promising and the writing is fantastic for the most part. I thought it accurately depicted dating in modern society, the podcast boom and the cultural clash between New Yorkers and rural Texans. The screenplay is the strongest at the beginning when we first meet Ben and Abby’s family – also featuring mum Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron), sisters Paris (Isabella Amara) and Kansas City (Dove Cameron), brother El Stupido (Eli Bickel) and Granny Carole (Louanne Stephens). I laughed a lot at the earlier scenes, particularly the opener, in which Ben and his pal John (John Mayer) chat about dating. The dialogue was spot-on and hilarious and gave me high hopes for what was to come.
But the story and writing became a little weaker as the film progressed and didn’t feel as tight, witty or focused as they did before. There are a couple of interesting revelations later on but otherwise, it takes a bit too long to wrap up and for Ben to have his big character growth moment. Ashton Kutcher‘s character Quentin is given rambling speeches that seem to go on forever. He felt like the mouthpiece for Novak’s thoughts about people living to record their lives for social media instead of actually living in the present.
Novak plays a character very similar to Ryan Howard from The Office. At first, Ben is a self-centred, patronising douche who decides to investigate Abby’s death because he knows it’ll make a huge podcast story – not because he cares about her or her family. Obviously, that changes over the course of the movie as Ben stays at the family home and eventually bridges the divide between them.
Holbrook was my favourite as the funny, gun-toting Ty, followed by Rae as Ben’s kind and intelligent boss. It was entertaining to see Kutcher in such a role with an interesting moustache, but the character talked too much.
I never got fully invested in Vengeance but I didn’t mind going along for the ride.
In cinemas Friday 7th October