vengeance movie review nyt

“Vengeance” sounds like the title of an action thriller. There have been films with that name before. But although vengeance is discussed in “Vengeance”—the first feature from writer/director/star B.J. Novak, co-star and co-writer of the American version of “The Office”—it has a lot more on its mind. Too much, probably. 

The story begins in earnest when New Yorker writer and aspiring public intellectual Ben Manalowitz (Novak) gets a call at his Manhattan apartment late one night from Ty Shaw ( Boyd Holbrook ), who lives in one of the flattest backwaters in West Texas, a small town five hours’ drive from Abilene, which is two hours and forty minutes from Dallas. Ty is calling to tell Ben that his sister, Ben’s girlfriend—who is oddly also named Abilene, Abby for short—has died. 

Ben doesn’t have a girlfriend named Abby. He’s a player who hooks up with many women. But a quick check of his phone confirms that he did indeed have sex with an aspiring singer named Abby ( Lio Tipton ) a few times and then forgot about her. Somehow he ends up letting himself be talked into traveling to Abby’s hometown, attending her funeral, and commiserating with her grieving family, which also includes her younger sisters Paris ( Isabella Amara ) and Kansas City ( Dove Cameron ), her kid brother El Stupido (Elli Abrams Beckel), and her mother Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron). Then Ty tells Ben that Abby was murdered, probably by a Mexican drug dealer named Sancholo ( Zach Villa ), and asks if he’ll help the family seek, well, you know.

Ben is a narcissist who seems to view every relationship and experience as a way of raising his status as a writer and quasi-celebrity, so it seems unbelievable at first that he’d travel to Texas to attend the funeral of a woman he didn’t really know. But the notion begins to seem more plausible once he starts talking to the family and slotting them into his prefabricated East Coast media-industrial-complex notions of “red state” and “blue state” people, and spinning his theories about temporal dislocation. Modern technology, he says, allows every person to exist in every moment except the present if they so choose. The desire for vengeance, we are told, is exclusively a backward-looking urge.

Intrigued by the possibility of writing the equivalent of a great American novel in the form of a podcast (he even name-checks Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood ) Ben decides to stick around to gather material for an audio series, which will be created under the supervision of his friend Eloise, a New York-based podcast editor for a National Public Radio-like organization. (As Eloise, Issa Rae works wonders with a thinly written role.)

If Ben’s creative vision sounds like the kind of navel-gazing blather that you’d hear on a true crime podcast in which an actual person’s murder becomes a springboard for brunchy rumination on law and truth and the nature of yadda yadda  by a group of Ivy League college graduates based in Brooklyn, well, Ben is aware that he’s sliding towards that cliché—and so is Eloise, who early on makes a joke to the effect that Ben is the only white man in America without a podcast. And yet, true to media form, they embrace the templates, tropes, and clichés anyway. 

Unfortunately, so does the movie. Like “The Daily Show” and its many imitators—and like Jon Stewart’s recent film “ Irresistible “—this is a movie that chastises its protagonist and the “red state” people he engages with for failing to look beyond the clichés they’re fed by their own self-enclosed media loops, while at the same time dining out on them. On one side of the great divide is a nation of “coastal elites” (driven by Harvard-educated Jewish people like Ben) who name-drop cultural tidbits that they learned in college and never revisited; sneer at monogamy, and think everything between the coasts that’s not a Top Ten city is a barbaric wasteland. The inhabitants of said wasteland are people whose favorite restaurant is Whataburger and have several guns in the house for every person (including the kids) and use them to settle their differences rather than calling 911. 

Intriguingly, though, even as “Vengeance” checks box after box on the op-ed chart of American shorthand, it also presents a number of characters with idiosyncrasies and layers that we’ve never seen in a movie before. Ben himself is quite a piece of work, and it’s to Novak’s credit that we eventually dig past Ben’s buzzwords and NPR-ready voice and see the character’s self-loathing (and, it would appear, the filmmaker’s) at realizing that he’s a prisoner of the same limited thinking he decries. (Ben often plays more like the protagonist of a French comedy than an American one—or like the characters played by Canadian satirist Ken Finkleman in “The Newsroom” and “More Tears.”) There’s little discussion of racial grievance as a motivation for politics in the film, and nobody mentions Trump, Greg Abbott, or the transformation of Texas into an authoritarian nation-state. The movie takes the audience into a minefield but tactfully declines to point out most of the mines. But these threats lurk under the surface, and they do occasionally explode—particularly when the drug epidemic that’s decimating white middle-America comes to the forefront of the story.

The supporting cast boasts a number of characters who seem one-note during their introductions but quickly assert their spiky individualism. Smith-Cameron seems underutilized at first, but becomes the emotional anchor of Ben’s story, and her final scene is powerful. There are several terrific scenes involving Abby’s onetime record producer Quinten Sellers, kind of a Phil Spector of West Texas who lives and works in a combination home, studio, and cult compound, and regales his talent and hangers-on with monologues about time, space, individuality, art, drugs, and hedonism that Marlon Brando or Dennis Hopper might have delivered in a 1970s American art film. Sellers is played by  Ashton Kutcher in what might be a career-best performance. With his polite but eerie intensity, ten-gallon white cowboy hat, and lanky frame, it’s as if Sam Shepard had come back to play Col. Walter Kurtz.

Novak is a thoughtful writer with a lot of things to say about the United States of America in the year 2022. The problem is that he seems determined to say all of them in one feature film. The result is a jumbled, fitfully amusing, occasionally fascinating effort, but one that shows promise even when it’s stumbling over its ambition and falling prey to some of the same stereotypes about “red” and “blue” (or reactionary and progressive) America that it keeps intimating that Americans need to get beyond. The first 15 minutes are borderline awful, but the movie gets better and more surprising as it goes, and the final act is impressive in its determination not to give the audience what it wants. Novak is famous enough that he could’ve cobbled together an onanistic two hours of nothing and still gotten into South by Southwest with it, but he decided to try to make a real movie. 

Now playing in theaters.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor-at-Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

• B.J. Novak as Ben Manalowitz
• Boyd Holbrook as Ty Shaw
• J. Smith-Cameron as
• Lio Tipton as
• Dove Cameron as Kansas City
• Issa Rae as
• Ashton Kutcher as
• Isabella Amara as Paris
• Hilda Rasula
• Plummy Tucker
• Finneas O’Connell

Cinematographer

• Lyn Moncrief

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‘Vengeance’ Review: B.J. Novak’s Terrific Directorial Debut Is a West Texas Murder Mystery That’s Like Preston Sturges Meets Film Noir Meets NPR

Novak introduces redneck stereotypes only to detonate them in a one-of-a-kind movie that's so wide awake and sharp-edged it marks the arrival of a potentially major filmmaker.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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B.J. Novak ’s “ Vengeance ,” which premiered last night at the Tribeca Film Festival (it opens July 29), is an irresistible original — a heady, jaunty, witty-as-they-come tall tale that’s just grounded enough in the real world to carry you along. It’s at once an ominous heartland murder mystery; a culture-clash comedy that finds Ben Manalowitz (played by Novak), an acerbic New Yorker writer and podcaster, descending into the bleak depths of West Texas; and a meditation on blue state/red state values that gradually evolves into something larger — a cosmic riff on how the two sides of America are working, nearly in tandem, to tear the country apart.

Novak, an actor best known for his role on “The Office” (where he also served as a writer, executive producer, and director), brings off what could have been a rickety conceit as if he were holding the audience in the palm of his hand. “Vengeance,” which he wrote and directed (it’s his first feature), has been made with such confidence and verve, and it’s held together by a vision — of loss, ambition, addiction, conspiracy theory, and how we’re all victims of the contemporary image culture — that is so wide awake and sharp-edged, it marks the arrival of a potentially major filmmaker.

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After a prelude set on a dark-as-midnight Texas oil field, with murky hints of foul play, the film kicks off with Ben and his buddy, played by John Mayer, scoping out women at Soho House, exchanging tips on how to play the hookup game. In the space of four minutes, the attitudes they express about serial dating and “commitment” — a concept as foreign to them as some ritual from a distant galaxy — are put forth with a compact misanthropic assurance that makes us think we’re seeing some 21st-century version of “Swingers.” (I have no doubt that Novak could make that movie, and that it might be as good as “Swingers.”) The ritual phrase of agreement they keep saying is “a hundred percent,” as if they were sure of it all. “Vengeance,” among other things, is a comic poke at the fake armor of cosmopolitan male certainty.

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At the party, Ben makes a pitch to a podcast producer, Eloise, played with twinkling cynicism by Issa Rae, and we hear the intricate yet slightly annoying way his mind works. Ben’s theory that what’s actually fragmenting our lives is our newly controlled sense of time has much to be said for it. Yet we also can’t help but hear how in love he is with the sound of his own mind. He’s a brainiac narcissist, too full of theories, and Novak gives him a crackling surface and a saturnine depth. The actor, with his large eyes, whip-crack delivery, and glare of geek suspicion, would be well cast as Lou Reed. Yet in “Vengeance,” he makes Ben a thumbnail portrait of the new generation of New York writer careerists whose idealism is dunked in opportunism.

Ben has a date (when the woman arrives at his apartment, he greets her with a friendly “How’s book world?,” not realizing that she’s not the hookup from publishing). In the middle of the night, after they’re in bed, he’s awakened by a call from a scary-sounding Southern stranger, who tells Ben that his girlfriend is dead. This would be news to Ben, since the concept of a “girlfriend” is also from that distant galaxy. But he did know the young woman in question (they hooked up a few times), and before long he finds himself speaking at the funeral of Abilene Shaw (Lio Tipton), right next to a photo of her with a guitar (“She loved music. I know that”), in rural Texas.

Why would he even be there? You have to roll with that one (though it’s actually explained down the line). Ben meets Abby’s family members — her mother, granny, and two sisters, her little tyke of a brother, and her older brother, Ty (Boyd Holbrook), a wild-boy yokel who has decided that Abby was murdered and wants Ben to help him solve the crime. He wants his vengeance. All this seems, for a scene or two, like a very movie-ish setup. Ben is the kind of New Yorker for whom Texas is not a real place; to him, Texas is the Austin of “South-by.” And as we glimpse the family pickup truck, with its twin rifles mounted on the back window, we wonder if the movie is going to be some glib Manhattan-swell-among-the-gun-nuts, geek-out-of-water comedy.

It quickly transcends that. Novak introduces clichés and stereotypes only to detonate them — or, better yet, fill them in in ways that show us how the stereotypes are real and not real. Abby’s family members are a bunch of rednecks, but that doesn’t mean they’re dumb, or unworldly, or not plugged into the currents of urban technology. They’re characters who keep surprising us. Ben, sensing an opportunity, decides to stay and make a podcast out of Abby’s death, keeping his digital phone recorder on during every conversation. It will be like “In Cold Blood” for the age of progressive radio, with Ben as the murder investigator and reporter. “I will find this person,” he tells the family, “or this generalized societal force. And I will define it.” He titles the podcast “The Dead White Girl” (Eliose, back in New York, is editing and advising), and “Vengeance” turns into the story of an East Coast creative telling a tale of backwoods locals even as his own blindness becomes central to their story.

The film’s perceptions arrive as jokes, and vice versa, whether it’s Ben trying (and failing) to get Ty and the others to define why they love the WhatABurger fast-food chain beyond the fact that it’s always right there. Or Ben being hilariously outed at a rodeo for the Northern wimp he is. Or Abby’s sister Paris (Isabella Amara) accusing Ben of cultural appropriation, to which he responds that her use of the term “cultural appropriation” is an act of cultural appropriation (they’re both right). Or a local music producer named Quentin Sellers, played with dashingly sinister aplomb by Ashton Kutcher in a white cowboy suit, explaining how and why conspiracy mania took over the heartland. Was Abby killed, or did she die of an opioid overdose? That’s the mystery, and it’s resolved in a way that puts a haunting cast of mythology over the spiritual despair of Middle America.

In a good way, “Vengeance” makes up its own rules. It’s a one-of-a-kind movie, like a Preston Sturges comedy fused with the free-floating what’s-it-all-mean? dread of “Under the Silver Lake.” But this movie, unlike that one, has a pretty good idea of what it all means. It’s voiced by the film’s most brilliant and disturbing character, who explains, in a way that may blow your head open a little bit, why the very way our culture now dissects and explains everything has had the paradoxical effect of robbing anything and everything of meaning. It’s the death of communication not just by social media but by all media, and in “Vengeance” the way it plays out in the heartland, where indifference can be a form of hate, makes a statement that reverberates. In “Vengeance,” B.J. Novak proves a born storyteller with the rare gift of using a film to say something that intoxicates us.

Reviewed at Tribeca Festival, June 12, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 107 MIN.

• Production: A Focus Features release of a Blumhouse production, in association with Divide/Conquer. Producers: Jason Blume, Adam Hendricks, Greg Gilreath. Executive producers: B.J. Novak, Leigh Kilton-Smith.
• Crew: Director, writer: B.J. Novak. Camera: Lyn Moncrief. Editors: Andy Canny, Hilda Rasula, Plummy Tucker.
• With: B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher, J. Smith-Cameron, Lio Tipton, Dove Cameron, Isabella Amara, Eli Abrams Bickel, Louanne Stephens, Zach Villa, Clint Obenchain.

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Home » Movies

Vengeance (2022) review — self-assured, confounding, and worth your time

B.J. Novak’s self-assured Vengeance is a darkly irreverent Texas Noir that shows enough promise to be worth your time, but the confounding experience leaves much to be desired.

I admire creatives who try and bring opposing sides together. The problem is most are complete, eye-rolling disasters. John Stewart’s Irresistible was an exercise on how both sides can piss into the wind without getting their pants wet. At least Craig Zobel’s The Hunt is clever and gory and admits how difficult it is to come together. And then we have B.J. Novak’s first time behind the camera. He tries to take this sensibility woven into an irreverent Texas Noire that is forced and does not always work the way it was intended. However, there is enough promise with Vengeance to make it worth your investment. Just enough.

Novak plays Ben Manalowitz, a journalist and hopeful podcaster. After hanging out day after day being the cool guy at the poor glued to his phone and taking home a different woman every night, he runs into a famous podcast producer, Eloise (Issa Rae). He wants to make something real, a podcast that will bring a divided country back together. He gets that chance with a phone call from a man he never met before. His name is Ty Shaw (Boyd Holbrook), and he tells Ben that his girlfriend, Abilene ( Crazy Stupid Love’s Lio Tipton), is dead. Here is the rub — Ben has no idea who he is talking about. Even more awkward, the hot blonde he embedded his plug-in with is lying beside him.

Who was Abilene? She is a woman he hooked up with twice and texted a handful of times that felt something for him. So, Ben travels to Texas to find out what happened here. He meets his “girlfriend’s” family. He finds out Abilene told her mother, Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron), and grandmother (Louanne Stephens) all about Ben. She also had two sisters, Jasmine (Dove Cameron) and Paris (Isabella Amara), who could not be more different. A little brother, whom Ty affectionately calls “El Stupido,” but do not worry, the kid does not speak Spanish. That’s what he tells Ben, anyway. After the funeral, he is ready to leave, but Ty wants him to stay so they can find her killer. Ben takes him up on his offer and decides to make a podcast on his new adventure.

Novak’s script is darkly funny and combines big city cynicism and Ben’s moral ambiguity with a small-town noir where a close-knit community keeps terrible secrets. However, I will get right to the problem. Much of the film is uneven and forced. Novak is interested in the theme behind finding common ground between opposing groups. He forces the fish out of water film tropes that are far from subtle. His attitude towards small town people is less of a joke on him as it’s about New York City attitudes.

For example, Texas folks don’t know how coffee can be taken with cream, sugar, or neither. In another scene, this group cannot communicate why they would pick Whataburger instead of McDonald’s. When there is an eventual clash between Ben and Abilene’s family, Novak’s character comes across far more arrogant than needed. Lastly, the tradition of Texas lawmen has skipped a couple of generations. Simply put, small towns do not investigate murders with state or federal help and oversight.

Vengeance , though, hits its stride when the mystery behind Abilene’s demise is ratcheted up a notch with a threat to Ben’s life. The reveal is clever, and a character represents ideals from both sides, which is unusual. Some would say that is a fairy tale. A white whale that does not exist. Where that plot point ends up is the key behind Novak’s thought process. We live in a time where partisan politics do not exist, and there is no pretending anymore. All we can do is communicate, listen, and respect one another.

Yes, Vengeance is uneven, and the praise I have heard about how thoughtful and intelligent it is are woefully exaggerated (a podcaster in media is the new posh Columbo). Though Novak’s debut is self-assured, the third act will spark a thought-provoking conversation and is entertaining enough to be enjoyable. Even if the entire confounding experience leaves much to be desired.

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

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A writer from New York City attempts to solve the murder of a girl he hooked up with and travels down south to investigate the circumstances of her death and discover what happened to her. A writer from New York City attempts to solve the murder of a girl he hooked up with and travels down south to investigate the circumstances of her death and discover what happened to her. A writer from New York City attempts to solve the murder of a girl he hooked up with and travels down south to investigate the circumstances of her death and discover what happened to her.

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• 300 User reviews
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• 65 Metascore

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• Ben Manalowitz

• Abilene Shaw

• Quentin Sellers

• Kansas City Shaw

• Sharon Shaw

• El Stupido Shaw
• (as Eli Abrams Bickel)

• Granny Carole Shaw

• Sancholo's Associate

• Sheriff Jimenez

• Brunette RandomHouse Party

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• Trivia On an episode of the Office Ladies podcast, B.J. Novak said that he first got the idea for the film when he saw a poster for another film titled Vengeance at a film festival. He said that he was struck with the image of his face on a poster with that name on it, believing audiences would be surprised, since that's not the type of work he's known for.
• Goofs At around 1h 2 mins, Monahans, TX is spelled Monohans on the map on the wall.

Sharon Shaw : It's all regrets. You run as fast as you can from the last regret and of course you are just running straight into the next one. That's life. It's all regrets. That's what they should say. No other way to be alive. It's all regrets. Make 'em count.

• Connections Featured in Half in the Bag: I Love My Dad, Watcher and Vengeance (2022)
• Soundtracks Red Solo Cup Written by Brett Beavers , Jimmy Beavers (as Jim Beavers), Brad Warren , Brett Warren Performed by Toby Keith Courtesy of Show Dog Nashville

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• Danusha_Goska
• Aug 6, 2022
• How long is Vengeance? Powered by Alexa
• July 29, 2022 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• The Hollywood Reporter
• Manh Mối Báo Thù
• Albuquerque New Mexico, USA
• Blumhouse Productions
• Divide/Conquer
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• Jul 31, 2022

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• Runtime 1 hour 47 minutes

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Review: B.J. Novak sends up media and looks for America in smart satire ‘Vengeance’

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“Vengeance,” the debut feature of writer-director-star B.J. Novak, opens with a scene of acidic social commentary that sets the tone for the smart satire of contemporary media culture that ensues. In a scene that targets the mating rituals of the urban-dwelling modern American cad interspersed into the opening credits with an almost jarring violence, Ben (Novak), a writer for the New Yorker, and the unlikely, sometimes unlikable, hero of “Vengeance,” parries back and forth with his friend John (played by singer John Mayer ) about their vapid dating lives.

As they debate the merits of seeing six women or three, question whether a cellphone contact labeled “Brunette Random House Party” refers to a woman met at at publishing event or just a “random house party,” and falsely declare that they’re not afraid of emotional intimacy, Novak does something important with his character: he first and foremost makes him a buffoon in this bracing setup that allows him to carefully thread the needle on his American tale.

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In “Vengeance,” Novak sets his sights on lampooning the big-city media types who go chasing stories in middle America and return with observations from the “flyover states” that are usually condescending, preachy, or inauthentic, and in doing so, he finds the humor, and something honest too.

Ben ends up in small-town Texas thanks to one of his numerous hookups. The family of aspiring musician Abilene (Lio Tipton), who has met a tragic end in what appears to be an accidental overdose death, is convinced that Ben was her serious boyfriend, and implores him to come to her funeral. When Abilene’s brother, Ty ( Boyd Holbrook ), insists that his sister was murdered and enlists Ben in his quest for revenge, his journalist ears perk up — this would be a great podcast. He quickly pitches it to a producer back in New York, Eloise ( Issa Rae ), and equipped with some Amazon flannel and the Voice Memos app, he sets out to tell the tale of a dead white girl, and of course, America itself.

The way in which Ben finds himself embroiled in the mystery swirling around a stranger’s death is reminiscent of the Serial podcast “S-Town,” and it’s clear that Novak knows this genre of “prestige journalism” well: when Ben speaks, even as we know we’re supposed to chuckle at his purple descriptions of the Texas sunset, he nails the style and cadence, the slick language of a media-savvy writer. It’s funny, but it’s also insightful. Ben’s work passes muster, which lends Novak’s film merit, and adds another layer to the complexity of this film.

“Vengeance” is fast and loose, moving quickly, the punchlines barely landing before we’re on to the next joke. The fantastic ensemble cast, including J. Smith Cameron and Ashton Kutcher make meals out of their dialogue, and though some of the plot’s twists and turns are a bit facile, and too heightened, it serves the mystery that churns the story along.

In “Vengeance” Novak’s linguistic blade is simultaneously incisive and skewering. He indicts Ben’s pretension and the craven way he seeks to extract Abilene’s story for his own gain, inspecting the media’s role in the “culture wars,” and the socially constructed divisions in our country. But the film manages to land somewhere between sour and sincere, as Ben makes meaningful connections with both Abi’s family, and Abi’s story, finding the heart after all. As Ben does, so does Novak, unearthing some profound truths, wrapped in comedy, about America right now, too.

'Vengeance'

Rated: R, for language and brief violence Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes Playing: Starts July 29 in general release

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‘Vengeance’ Will Make You Want to Punch B.J. Novak in the Face — in a Good Way

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

It’s a wonder more fish-out-of-water comedies aren’t about journalists. Being an outsider is, in many versions of the job, central to the task. Disaster strikes, you helicopter in, vacuum up the details, organize them, spit them out with a handsome lede, helicopter out. Or, in the case of Vengeance ’s Ben Manalowitz, you hook up with a girl a few times and later get a call out of nowhere that she died — a call that you , a mere hookup, are getting thanks to kissy-faced photos she posted on social media, which have confused her family into thinking you were her boyfriend. Then you helicopter in. 

In that second case, you’re the story — you and this weird little journey you’re on, which goes downhill from the moment that you’re asked to give a eulogy for a woman whose name you didn’t even remember when you heard she had died. One of hookup culture’s worst nightmares is sudden, unexpected obligation. For Ben, a consummate opportunist with dreams of nabbing a big-time podcast, obligation lands in his lap at just the right time, and he wouldn’t be the man that he is if he didn’t instinctively turn it into an opportunity. 

A good thing about Vengeance is that Ben is played by B. J. Novak, who also wrote and directed the movie, and who’s succeeded at coming up with a project that matches his comedic style: likably unlikable, the kind of prick you’d still watch a movie about. Vengeance exercises his knack for making unappetizing social qualities watchable, maybe because he’s playing a character whose self-confidence you don’t really believe in, or maybe because you already know that the movie will make him the butt of some of its rudest jokes. At the movie’s start, Ben is in full-on womanizer mode, palling around with John Mayer and saying things about women that you somehow doubt he can really live up to — well on his way, in other words, to earning himself the punch in the face that he’ll get later in the movie. He writes for the New Yorker , apparently, but that matters less than the fact that he can’t help but correct people when they mistakenly call it New York Magazine — a distinction that for Ben merits all the difference in the world. 

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Ben is dragged down to Nowheresville, Texas, to the funeral of Abby (Lio Tipton), only because he doesn’t have enough of a backbone to tell her family that this woman was just a hookup — an awkward thing to have to say about someone’s dead relative, admittedly. From watching Vengeance , you’d guess much of Ben’s life played out like this: beholden to stronger personalities, empowered by his byline and his “outside-of-Boston” degree. It’s only when he meets Abby’s mother (played by J. Smith-Cameron), older brother (Boyd Holbrook), sisters, younger brother, and grandmother — with their wild, Texan talk, and Alamo hero-worship, and guns, and bloodthirsty fantasies of vengeance — that he sees this trip for the gift that it is. Abby ostensibly died of a drug overdose. Her family believes she was murdered. Ben… doesn’t care so much about that. He cares about the wild things coming out of their mouths. He is going to exploit them. 

Vengeance pokes fun at New York writer-types and insular, gun-toting Texans both. It’s funnier and smarter when it’s sticking it to New York media. “Not every white guy in New York needs a podcast,” Ben is told by Eloise (Issa Rae), a successful producer. Of course he starts one anyway. Of course it’s “about America.” And of course his needling opportunism meets its match when he actually makes his way around Texas and learns, the hard way, that he doesn’t know spit about the place: doesn’t know the right teams to root for, doesn’t know the social rules (such as: only the residents of a place can shit on that place) or which jokes to laugh at or why it’s so tedious for someone to have to explain just why it is that they love Whataburger. Watching Ben learn that you cannot judge books by their covers, not even the books trying to make nice with the local branch of a cartel, is a little boring. It’s appropriate to a movie that’s gently spoofing podcasters, however. It’s when we see Ben get humiliated that Vengeance serves up its finest thrills: red-hot, uncomfortable, a little mean, vaguely dangerous. It isn’t until he’s at a rodeo that Ben fully announces his Jewishness within the movie, by way of saying his last name aloud, in front of a crowd. It’s a scene that started by confronting him with a Confederate flag, one of the movie’s better punchlines. And now look at him: singled out in front of a crowd whose hostility could be because he’s an outsider, or because he keeps putting his foot in his mouth, or because he’s condescending, or because he’s a “New York writer,” or because he’s Jewish — or all of the above. 

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The tension works, the comedy works, because it’s unilateral. The rowdy Texans are the butt of one joke, Ben the butt of the funnier joke — the one about a try-hard smarty who works in liberal media, makes a living telling relatable human interest stories about people from all walks of life, and yet bears little trace of having ever actually interacted with a fellow human in a real, nontransactional way. It’s a joke that’s been told about the overeducated before. It sort of works here, though, because Ben’s participation in this premise is so narcissistically far-fetched to begin with.

Clearly, he cannot be allowed to stay this way. That would be too vicious. And Ben isn’t cool enough to pull off that narcissism with the smooth, polished charisma of a plainspoken, genius record producer, like the man he encounters in Quinten Sellers (a scene-stealing Ashton Kutcher). Vacuum-sealed life lessons are so de rigueur for NPR-style podcasts and their murder-mystery peers that a movie like Vengeance would be wise enough to parody the idea, no holds barred and no apologies needed. Vengeance is not quite so wise. It’s almost there. We’ve reached the era in which, for a murder podcast, no ending is the best ending. Sure, the mystery remains unsolved, but now we can expound . Vengeance pokes its fun at this idea. The result is less an elbow to the ribs than proof that the movie is laudably current, very up-to-the-moment, very wink-wink . 

Or maybe Vengeance knows that, as a comedy, it doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on if corny trends in podcasting are the target. Podcasts often reward fake-deep explorations of the self. So, unfortunately, do many current comedies, which in this century have often fallen prey to a similar mandate that we eat our broccoli, taking our laughs with a side of social responsibility, their meanness tempered by gestures at what can be learned, their plots overwhelmingly invested in goodness, niceness, and faith in others. At its best moments, Vengeance sees the peril in all of this by seeing right through it — by seeing through Ben, whose journey to our good graces is made more drastic by his starting the movie out as a complete dick. 

In the end, we see Ben falling asleep listening to Abby’s music — a stark change from the man who earlier couldn’t make the time to so much as click a link. In a morally effective comedy, an outright satire, this shift would be world-shaking; it’d be so ironic, you’d have to laugh. Moral comedy, this is not. More than anything else, it’s just convenient. 

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What critics think of ‘Vengeance,’ B.J. Novak’s new movie

The reviews (both good and bad) of the newton native's dark comedy/thriller..

By Kevin Slane

Newton native B.J. Novak, best known for his role as Ryan on NBC’s “The Office,” has taken the creative reins in his most recent projects. He created a satirical anthology show “The Premise” for FX, and this week marks his film directorial debut with another dark comedy: “Vengeance.”

Novak pulls double duty as both the director and star of “Vengeance,” playing a smug, entitled millennial stereotype named Ben, a Brooklyn writer. When a girl he hooked up with a few times but barely remembers turns up dead and he is inexplicably (in Ben’s eyes, anyway) invited to the funeral, he travels to West Texas in the hopes of turning the saga into a podcast. Once he’s made it to her small Texas hometown in his rented Prius, Ben realizes there’s more to the story and the people he had pre-judged.

Early critical response to the film, which opens July 29, has been positive. So far, review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes has awarded “Vengeance” a  79 percent freshness rating  at the time of this article’s publication.

That said, a single number can’t adequately capture the range of critical response, and many of the reviews coded as “fresh” or “rotten” by the critical aggregation site have a bit more nuance. To help you judge whether to rush to theaters starting Thursday afternoon, here’s what some of the top film critics are saying, both good and bad, about “Vengeance.”

Stephanie Zacharek of Time  credited Novak with perfectly inhabiting the role of a millennial stereotype.

Novak is a sly one, and though the script is clever and the direction certainly serviceable, it’s his face that really holds you: with those half-skeptical, half-trusting eyes, he has the visage of a person who has probably always looked a bit like a little old man, even as a baby. As Ben, he’s a knowing naif, eagerly exploring the desolate West Texas landscape in his rented Prius.

Michael O’Sullivan of the Washington Post  implored readers to see “Vengeance,” giving it 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) and praising Novak for his wit.

To call Novak’s first feature auspicious would not be wrong, but it’s more than that. “Vengeance” is an arrestingly smart, funny and affecting take on a slice of the American zeitgeist, one in which both the divisions between and connections with our fellow citizens are brought into sharp relief. It’s a terrific yarn, both provocative and entertaining.

In her review for The Boston Globe , Natalia Winkelman  praised Novak for his self-satirizing streak and for showcasing his directorial skills in his debut.

That Novak casts himself as this lead wisenheimer is, well, wise; the Newton-born writer and actor famous for his role on “The Office” has always had a knack for skewering his own sensibilities. In “Vengeance,” Novak proves his chops both as an adept filmmaker and skillful satirist of contemporary mores.

Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt  acknowledged that some of Novak’s jokes landed, but suggested they grew tiresome over the course of the film. 

Novak, who spent years refining the squirrelly ticks of his self-regarding salesman Ryan on nine seasons of The Office, isn’t a demonstrably different dude here. His callow-millennial act — and the navel-gazing vagaries of modern content culture — make fertile ground for satire, and many of the jokes here do find their soft targets. But it can also feel hollow and exhausting in main-character movie form.

In the New York Times, A.O. Scott  credits Novak for taking a big swing at trenchant cultural commentary, but suggests that the filmmaker’s work is “not quite as smart as it thinks it is.”

Novak, who wrote and directed the movie, has his own thoughts about America, subtler than Ben’s but not necessarily any more convincing. “Vengeance,” while earnest, thoughtful and quite funny in spots, demonstrates just how difficult it can be to turn political polarization and culture-war hostility into a credible narrative. Its efforts shouldn’t be dismissed, even though it’s ultimately too clever for its own good, and maybe not quite as smart as it thinks it is..

Sarah Hagi of the Globe and Mail wrote that “Vengeance” would have worked better if Novak hadn’t cast himself as the lead character and thus felt it necessary to somewhat redeem the protagonist. 

As a director, Novak would likely be more successful if he hadn’t cast himself as the main focus of his own mystery. There are occasional moments when the film is so close to feeling like it is accomplishing its goals – to be seen as a sharp and comedic critique of the cost of storytelling, with a fun little whodunnit at its core – but it never quite gets there.

Benjamin Lee of The Guardian  wrote that the characters of “Vengeance” are “cartoonish,” and that its overall message was muddled due to a scattershot approach.

Updating an age-old fish out of water setup such as this with the internet as an obvious influence makes the world immediately that much smaller and Novak’s character explaining what a writer does and what a magazine is pushes the culture clash into cartoonish territory. As he shifts from comedy to thriller, with a rather banal crime plot taking centre stage, I’m not quite sure if Novak knows what he wants to say with a film that clearly, desperately wants to say something..

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Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Vengeance (2022)

October 5, 2022 by Robert Kojder

Vengeance , 2022.

Written and Directed by B.J. Novak. Starring B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, J. Smith-Cameron, Lio Tipton, Dove Cameron, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher, Isabella Amara, Eli Bickel, Grayson Berry, Ben Whitehair, Gonzalo Robles, and Clint Obenchain.

A radio host from New York City attempts to solve the murder of a girl he hooked up with and travels down south to investigate the circumstances of her death and discover what happened to her.

In Vengeance , B.J. Novak’s popular podcaster/writer Ben Manalowitz finds himself traveling from New York City to middle-of-nowhere Texas, attending the funeral and eulogizing the death of his aspiring singer girlfriend Abilene Shaw (Lio Tipton). However, the circumstances are anything but ordinary.

Ben has been pressured into making the trip by Abilene’s brother Tyler (Boyd Holbrook) over a late-night phone call where the former doesn’t seem to recognize Abilene’s name. That’s because Ben is a hook-up guy that doesn’t see the point in monogamy. He also doesn’t seem to realize when one of these women (they mostly go into his phone under dehumanizing labels reducing them to a single talent or personality traits) perceives their dynamic as a serious relationship.

Self-absorbed and woefully missing the point, Ben also believes there is a story here about America’s identity, the correlations between mythology and conspiracy, and a good old-fashioned murder mystery set amongst a backdrop of problematic yet well-meaning Texans deliciously right there to be transformed into larger-than-life comedic characters serving the story. He’s perfectly comfortable exploiting the community and immediate family surrounding a woman he didn’t actually love for some more fame and to pretentiously be seen as an intellectual that got to the bottom of America’s rotten core.

This all comes about when several friends and family of Abilene swear up and down that she would never go anywhere near drugs, let alone enough to overdose, and had to have been murdered. In fairness, considering that before her death, her body was dragged to an area with no cell service that crosses into four different territories (meaning that local law enforcement, border patrol, and more can keep kicking the case back and forth to one another without making a real effort to solve it), they have a point.

However, Ben sees an impoverished, uneducated community in denial and refusing to accept the truth (which is different from the facts in one of the film’s many intriguing provocations). It could also be argued that he also has a point, as we meet Abilene’s family, which amounts to most Southern stereotypes.

Put it this way, a scene of black comedy depicts a 10-year-old child (referred to as El Stupido because he doesn’t understand Spanish) coming into Ben’s guest room asking for help unjamming a handgun. Not to mention, most of these people seem to have very shallow life ambitions whenever they are not being wowed by eating at Whataburger.

B.J. Novak also writes and directs Vengeance (marking his debut), smartly homing in on the characters and less about the murder investigation (which is somewhat easy to solve for anyone familiar with movies). There’s a line from Abilene (a performance given through screens) mentioning “heart sees the heart,” and it’s not hard to see the heart in any of these characters despite their shortcomings and questionable behavior.

Even as Ben looks through Abilene’s laptop and revisits previous text conversations, there’s a sense of shame and regret that he ignored her emotions and needs, never stopping to assert that he wasn’t looking for anything serious. There’s a wave of responsible guilt that crashes over him and conflicts with his misguided career move of turning this into a broader picture of America.

There are also some pleasant supporting turns here, ranging from Issa Rae’s handler and superior to Ben and Ashton Kutcher as a recording executive that forces Ben to look inward regarding what he is trying to accomplish. It’s also shocking that in a movie littered with darkly hilarious bits, Ashton Kutcher is one nailing a dramatic role.

Vengeance poses plenty of thoughtful questions, but does someone get lost tying it all together with an ending that feels rushed that also leaves some of its themes missing a sense of profundity that should be there. Otherwise, it’s a solid calling card from B.J Novak. who clearly has a lot to say as a filmmaker. He deserves more opportunities to do so.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★  / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Vengeance review: a mystery with more on its mind than just murder

When we meet podcaster/reporter Ben Manalowitz, the lead character in B.J. Novak’s directorial debut Vengeance , he’s engaging in the kind of behavior that seems typical of a single New York male asshole. At a bougie publishing party in Brooklyn, he’s busy rating and ranking random women in his DMs with his equally cringy friend John, played all too well by the singer John Mayer. Unlikable protagonists are all the rage these days, and after just five minutes, Ben not only qualifies as one but also threatens to become too sleazy and insufferable for the movie’s own good.

Dead White Girl

Not just another mystery.

Yet the beauty of Vengeance , which Novak also stars in (as Ben) and wrote, is that nothing is what it seems, and for a murder mystery that doubles as a culture clash comedy, that’s an extremely good thing. Alternatively funny and moving, the movie is always intelligent and sensitive to the characters it could have just mocked. It’s the rare mystery that prioritizes the life of the victim, and rarer still, it’s one of the few summer films with something to say.

The mystery begins when Ben is called by the brother of one of his past hookups, Abilene Shaw, informing him that she’s been found dead of a drug overdose in an empty field. Sensing a story opportunity (the podcast is eventually called Dead White Girl , which is both on-the-nose and bluntly accurate to the exfoliative nature of true crime media), Ben agrees to attend her funeral in Texas, unsure as to why he’s been so fondly remembered by someone he himself can barely recall. Once there, he meets Abilene’s family: brother Ty ( Boyd Holbrook, excellent), a handsome urban cowboy; mother Sharon (J-Smith Cameron); sisters Paris (Isabella Amara) and Kansas City (Dove Cameron), both eager to be famous; grandma Carole (Louanne Stephens), who likes to solve problems with a shotgun; and little brother El Stupido (Eli Abrams Bickel), who does not live up to his nickname.

On paper and when you first meet them, these people are Texas caricatures who are instantly looked down upon by Ben, who can’t relate to them at all. But as Ben’s editor Eloise ( Insecure ‘s Issa Rae , sharp as ever) insists on him staying in Abilene’s desolate town to get to the bottom of her murder, he begins to connect them and the other citizens as less like subjects of a podcast and more like people genuinely rocked by their shared tragedy.

It’s to Novak’s credit that he takes the time to give every character, even possible suspects like possible Mexican cartel member Sancholo (Zach Villa), nuance and life. For instance, Kansas City may want to become famous and leave her town for good, but she’ll take umbrage if Ben, or anyone else, insults it in front of her. Ty may be a good old cowboy who loves drinking beer, but he also is deeply committed to his family, and it’s this desire that fuels his need for vengeance and, eventually, Ben’s need to find her killer.

Most prominently is Abilene’s music producer Quinten Sellers (Ashton Kutcher, surprisingly good), himself an outsider who is first introduced rhapsodizing over another young girl’s singing voice. We’ve seen this character before, the sleazy mogul taking advantage of his naïve students, yet both Novak and Kutcher don’t push Quentin’s menace. You’re not entirely sure what his deal is or whether or not you can trust him, and that’s entirely the point.

Ben’s quest for answers in solving Abilene’s death leads him to experience the small town life that many Texas natives can relate to and outsiders can chuckle at. In one scene, Ben attends a rodeo and incorrectly names the wrong university as his preferred school of choice in Texas. Only a city slicker would cite UT-Austin over Texas Tech, and Ben’s embarrassment is played for well-earned laughs. It’s good to see the arrogant New Yorker get taken down a peg.

In another scene, Ben accompanies the Shaw family to their gourmet eatery of choice: Whataburger. When he asks what makes the Texas-based chain so special from other fast food restaurants, each Shaw blankly asserts that “it’s there.” What more explanation does he need? It’s Whataburger ! These scenes are comedic, and there’s a subtle clash of cultural humor that isn’t overdone or played too broadly.

Yet the heart of the movie is the mystery of Abilene’s death, and it’s here that Novak reveals his intentions to not only provide a good whodunit but also to critique the true crime genre itself. There’s a third act monologue by a character that explicitly states who Novak is condemning: us, or more specifically, the culture which encourages hot takes without context and division without empathy. Vengeance argues that the revelation of Abilene’s murderer, and the story of how she died, shouldn’t be consumed by us or anyone else beyond her family. We’re using her death as entertainment, something to pass the time and sell to advertisers.

In its final moments, Novak doesn’t let us off the hook or provide easy answers. We got what we wanted, but did we have any right to in the first place? Vengeance is many things: a compelling murder mystery , a funny City Slickers update, and a critique on true crime and podcast culture. That it succeeds at all three, while also leaving us entertained and challenged, is a small miracle in a summer full of easy delights and superficial pleasures.

Vengeance is out now in movie theaters nationwide.

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So long, summer. Labor Day weekend was a dead zone for new movies, allowing Deadpool & Wolverine to climb to No. 1 at the box office. That all changes this weekend with the release of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton's long-awaited sequel to 1988's Beetlejuice. Early tracking suggests Beetlejuice 2 could surpass $100 million domestically in its opening weekend.

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Labor Day weekend is over, and many of us have the post-holiday blues. Some will cure it by seeing Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the highly-anticipated sequel to the 1988 comedy hit starring Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder. Others will chose to stay home and see what's on streaming.

If you fall into the latter camp and have an active Netflix subscription, then this list is for you. The following three films offer a variety of quality entertainment to suit any mood you're in. The only downside is that watching any of these movies will make you want watch more just like them, and who has the time for that?

When it was announced that Concord, PlayStation's live-service hero shooter, would be taken offline just two weeks after launch, many had the same question: What's going to happen to the Concord episode of the upcoming Amazon show Secret Level?

A source close to production confirmed to Digital Trends that the Concord episode is still set to air during the anthology show's first season. So despite the game currently not being available to play or buy, it'll get something of a second life inside the show, which is slated to debut on December 10.

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Vengeance Reviews

Though the script ventures into the unrealistic with its over-the-top Texas spirit and overused philosophical messages embedded throughout, Vengeance gets one important thing right. It finds a way to compel viewers emotionally...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2024

Even with a flawed story and some underdeveloped characters, Vengeance shines through a hilarious script and a colorful bunch of Shaws that protagonist Ben interacts with.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 6, 2024

The film has quite a hard time negotiating between the serious and the comedy... you don't need to see it on the big screen.

Full Review | Jan 3, 2024

Who knew Ryan from the office would one day direct, write, produce, & act in a film that is smartly written in such a straight forward comedy

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Vengeance, more than anything, is a plea for life to have meaning without being distilled into content generation. It’s a plea for presentness, a willingness to embrace regrets, and a promise to do better.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

After an admittedly slow start, Vengeance kicks into extremely compelling gear...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 10, 2023

Vengeance makes some of its cultural stereotypes too broad and heavy-handed, and the movie's ending could have been better. Overall, the story can hold viewers' interest, as long as there's tolerance for what the movie is saying about personal biases.

Full Review | Jan 12, 2023

...a solid debut from Novak...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 23, 2022

From Ashton Kutcher to Whataburger, B.J. Novak’s shrewd feature length directorial debut quite literally comes out of left field swinging.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Dec 10, 2022

This film has a lot to say about our perception of things and how our biases skew how we feel. The result is a little blander than it could have been, but it ultimately works as a smart, decently written debut from Novak.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 30, 2022

Beginning as a fast-talking comedy with something dark lurking underneath, this film sends its central character into an amusingly alien culture before shifting into a mystery thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 12, 2022

As a comedy about contemporary American society it feels weirdly anachronistic, with an uninspired story told with little urgency or novelty.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 10, 2022

It’s mildly amusing stuff that delivers no surprises, but may muster a few laughs.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2022

Novak imbues the yokels with dignity and unfussy sophistication.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 7, 2022

It’s caustic, clever, and shallow entertainment, usually all at once.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 7, 2022

Some of this is very funny, sometimes the comedy feels forced, and sometimes, not entirely successfully, it is abandoned altogether. Cautiously recommended.

It feels like Novak’s trying to use the crime podcast angle to satirise the mythology of a decaying Middle America and explore a creative existential crisis. Instead, we get an enjoyable and genuinely funny satire on the class divide.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 5, 2022

Novak's feature debut is an ingenious social satire with the right balance of humor and mystery. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 5, 2022

BJ Novak nails the nuance and humor of Texas culture in a way that only he could.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Sep 26, 2022

Both the funniest movie I've seen in quite a while and an example of something really good progressively falling apart.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 26, 2022

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An in-depth discussion of film

Comprehensive review for Vengeance. Discussion is welcome and appreciated.

“As, Like, a Personal Boundary, I Don’t Avenge Deaths.”

BJ Novak is itching for a return. After making an impression on The Office as both a cast member and writer, Novak faded into the crowd. However, he’s recently made a return to the screen with anthology show The Premise, and a new film called Vengeance, a big, ambitious statement on the nature of the country, journalists, regionalism, politics, and Whataburger.

The film follows Novak’s Ben as he’s invited to the funeral of Abilene, a girl he only briefly knew, at the request of her brother. He travels to West Texas (not be confused, as this reviewer was, with Abilene, Texas) and subsequently discovers new material for The New Yorker, in the form of a podcast. Ben discovers West Texas living as he rassles with the idea of a divided America and reflects on his own character in the process.

Vengeance is Novak overload. Undeniably talented, Novak seems to know he’s undeniably talented, emphasizing his writing to the detriment of his filmmaking. The dialogue in Vengeance is verbose and long-winded, but the visual landscape is sparse and flat.

There are many films which emphasize their scripts over their visual elements; shining examples are The Hunt and All About Eve, to name some off the top, and the most famous and essential example of this filmmaking mode is My Dinner with Andre. Vengeance doesn’t live up to the examples these films set, but Novak is occasionally rousing, even if his thoughts on contemporary America are one-sided.

Vengeance is an uneven and frustrating film, but its central flaw lingers throughout. Novak the writer seems indifferent toward the film’s central premise – was Abilene murdered, and if so, how big is the conspiracy/cover up? The question is asked early, but frequently abandoned for a more “Dances with Wolves” mold, with the girl’s quirky family playing the shockingly enlightened savages.

Framing the film in these terms proves counterproductive as Ben ambles through the landscape, sermonizing into his mic about the precarious constitution of the country. The suggested, murky nature of Abilene’s death hangs over characters’ interactions, fogging up Vengeance’s message with the promise of more kinetic excitement.

Vengeance is largely set in a fictional, sleepy West Texas town, but it’s abundantly clear that it was written by an infallibly smug coastal elite. The film is ostensibly about a man learning to appreciate a shared yet alien culture, but the Texans rarely come across as anything but dumb country bumpkins. They possess the requisite kindness to not come across as assholes, but they’re also single-minded, one-dimensional, and impossibly dense.

At many points, Vengeance feels like a comedy of mockery disguised as earnest bridge-building, rather than the other way around, frequently playing like Blazing Saddles if Mel Brooks wrote Bart and company with learning disabilities.

To be fair, Novak seems to hold his protagonist in low esteem too. Ben is an abhorrently shallow, self-obsessed drone, exclusively committed to furthering his career at the expensive of his subjects. He doesn’t become involved with Abilene’s family for any emotional introspection or catharsis, but only to give his national audience a sonic snack to munch on, synthesized from a real-world tragedy. To this end, the original title for his podcast is “Dead White Girl.” I’d like to think this reductionism is knowingly cynical and heartless.

So, the film is populated by an ensemble of characters Novak actively disdains. This is a nice setup for a comedy of spite, in which all characters are served their just deserts, but that’s not what Vengeance is. Vengeance is a dramedy, assembled from disparate threads about the state of America today, distilled through an aloof, pretentious journalist.

Ben is an insert for Novak, so the film must end with the illusion of a lesson learned, an illusion of moral or intellectual growth, even if that growth is laughably unearned and dishonest. In short, Ben is given the pleasure of growing close to the Texans and pretending to understand them, while the film consistently portrays them as fools and hicks. It’s quite grating.

Vengeance is rarely funny, sporadically dramatic, and occasionally insightful. Many of the insights don’t come from Ben, but from Ashton Kutcher’s Quentin Sellers, a record producer. Sellers understands a few modern truths, not because he’s a political ideologue, but because he’s a creator and disseminator of creative media.

Being a record producer, he understands the desire of those around him to chase “fragments” of their existence, rather than looking straight ahead. His musings about humanity’s new drive to record, manicure, and export moments of time, rather than live in the present, are the most profound sentiments of Vengeance, far clearer and less contrived than any of Ben’s political musings.

Despite the muddied thematic intentions, Vengeance is still adequately engaging and satisfyingly unpredictable. It’s well structured and pleasantly straightforward, and the setting is cinematically unique, especially to contemporary cinema. It has a tendency toward visual flatness, but it’s spryly edited and slim enough to move at a comfortable pace. It’s a nice piece of original filmmaking which takes itself refreshingly seriously, even if it’s not the masterpiece of social satire Novak is aiming for.

Overall, Vengeance is a solid directorial debut. It will be interesting to watch his career trajectory; will he take another crack at “social consciousness,” try for something more lighthearted, or veer straight into darker, more dramatic material?

A film like Vengeance, which tries to dissect the nature, perceptions, and ideas of the culture war, was always bound to be obfuscated by conflicting ideas, but Novak does make a sincere effort at unpacking and categorizing the many differences between the worlds of rural and urban America, even if he irritatingly takes a side. It’s a thoughtful, if irkingly pretentious dissertation on where we stand and why. It’s possible you may not agree with Novak’s thesis, but you should see his film.

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Common Sense Media Review

Thoughtful comedy questions stereotypes; violence, language.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Vengeance is a comedy thriller about a New York journalist who thinks he's found the perfect true-crime story in a small Texas town. Written and directed by and starring B.J. Novak ( The Office ), the movie is about reevaluating preconceived notions that are based on where…

Why Age 14+?

Strong language includes "a--hole," "balls," "dumbass," "s--t," and several uses

Opioid use within a party atmosphere, leading to negative consequences. Social d

Guns. Shooting with blood. Explosion with minor wounds. Hard punch. Drug overdos

Apple products. A brand of tequila is shown prominently. Some brands are used as

Men talk about/justify their "pick 'em up and throw 'em away" treatment of women

Any Positive Content?

Ben is an intellectual, opportunistic New York journalist who arrives in Texas w

In a socially disconnected and antagonistic world, we need to choose to connect

A Black woman is depicted positively, as a successful leader who chooses her emp

Strong language includes "a--hole," "balls," "dumbass," "s--t," and several uses of "f--k," including "motherf----r" and "f--ktards." A 9-year-old is called "El Stupido" by his family as if it's his name.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Opioid use within a party atmosphere, leading to negative consequences. Social drinking at bars and parties. At start of film, a sympathetic character dies of an overdose. Several moments of discussion about whether she did or didn't have a drug habit.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Guns. Shooting with blood. Explosion with minor wounds. Hard punch. Drug overdose.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Apple products. A brand of tequila is shown prominently. Some brands are used as punchlines or to define characters, such as Whataburger, Fritos, Solo cups, and Prius.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Men talk about/justify their "pick 'em up and throw 'em away" treatment of women. References to casual sex. Sex implied by showing a couple in bed together after the fact.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Role Models

Ben is an intellectual, opportunistic New York journalist who arrives in Texas with a superior point of view but comes to appreciate the qualities of the people he meets there -- and to realize that being different doesn't make you less than. He does a lot of soul-searching about who he is as a person. Movie offers an example of the beauty of a close family, although they have their flaws.

Positive Messages

In a socially disconnected and antagonistic world, we need to choose to connect rather than judge. Explores why people are prone to believe conspiracy theories. But there's a negative approach to solving a problem.

Diverse Representations

A Black woman is depicted positively, as a successful leader who chooses her employee's well-being over the project she has invested in. Portrayal of West Texas characters initially plays into stereotypes, but as Ben gets to know them, it becomes clear to him and to viewers that they're much more than "hicks." Mexican characters are portrayed as being in a cartel; cartel head is depicted as sensitive, caring.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Vengeance is a comedy thriller about a New York journalist who thinks he's found the perfect true-crime story in a small Texas town. Written and directed by and starring B.J. Novak ( The Office ), the movie is about reevaluating preconceived notions that are based on where someone lives or what they do for a living. Most characters initially seem to play into broad stereotypes -- Mexican cartel members, Texas hicks, etc. -- but the story argues that if we look closer, we can see people for their full selves, rather than labels. As a result, the film gives both urban and rural folks the ability to laugh together, at themselves. The central plot is about a young woman who fatally overdosed on opioids, and there's a lot of talk about drug use and partying. Drugs aren't portrayed positively, but drinking is shown as contributing to a social bond. Guns are presented as part of Texas culture, including one owned by a 9-year-old. There's a shooting that's pretty bloody. Language and insults include "dumbass," "s--t," and variations of "f--k." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (4)

Based on 3 parent reviews

Underage girl portrayed sexually

Dark funny humor with some 'philosophy', what's the story.

When Ben (B.J. Novak), a writer for The New Yorker , receives a call stating that his "girlfriend" Abilene Shaw ( Lio Tipton ) is dead from a drug overdose, he has to scroll through his phone to figure out who this girl was. Baffled but curious, Ben flies to Texas to attend Abby's funeral. When her brother ( Boyd Holbrook ) asks Ben to join him in a quest for VENGEANCE, Ben realizes that Abby's close-knit family and her not-so-mysterious death have the makings of a perfect podcast.

Is It Any Good?

Novak clearly poured his heart and soul into this story, which works hard to try to show Americans that, to understand each other, we need more compassion and connection and fewer snap judgments. Using comedy, mystery, and self-deprecating humor, Novak's Ben sets out confidently to show why people are prone to believe conspiracy theories. But what he learns is that while he may be more formally educated than many of the folks in Abby's Texas town, that doesn't make him better -- in fact, he may be worse. Prejudice starts with not understanding someone who's different from you, and Vengeance helps to put in perspective that different is simply that: different.

Novak's sweat is all over the screen here. Choosing to star in the first feature you've also written and directed is a lot to bite off for your first chew. He may have benefited from having some distance from all three of the top above-the-line roles. He proves himself as an actor's director, eliciting memorable performances from his actors, including John Mayer's hysterical and self-mocking turn as Ben's womanizing wingman. Each member of the cast delivers standout work, most of all Ashton Kutcher , who's so fantastic as small-town music producer Quentin Sellers that it's impossible to see anyone else wearing the character's cleavage-torn white T-shirt, scarf, and white suit and pulling it (or the role) off. Quentin says to Ben at one point that "nobody writes anything original, we just translate." In Vengeance , Novak translates New York City and Texas culture with such accuracy in strokes both broad and specific that it's hilarious rather than offensive -- and even if you don't totally get it, it's still funny. Meanwhile, big chunks of dialogue are overfull of "wisdom" to spew at viewers -- wise words that Novak probably intended as quotes destined for wall art. But the messages fly so fast that it's nearly impossible to catch and process them. Still, that's a small quibble, as is the movie's inconsistent sound quality. The biggest issue, though, is the ending, which just doesn't ring true for Ben -- at least, for Ben as played by Novak. It's the one time that Novak taking on three large roles in the production seems to be a problem, as Ben becomes Novak's fantasy version of himself rather than the more believable version of himself that he plays throughout the film. Or, perhaps this is because his message is too effective: If he's begging viewers to truly see people for their whole selves, we can't help but see him through his character and through his work. Better said through the words of Abilene Shaw, "heart sees heart."

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how curiosity initiates Ben's journey and leads to personal growth. Why is this an important character strength? How can changing your environment or home base, even for a short time, help broaden your perspective?

Are drug use and drinking glamorized in Vengeance ? Are there realistic consequences? Why does that matter?

How does the script wink at some of the rules of filmmaking? What elements get a "payoff"?

A few characters make memorable speeches about their theories on human psychology and the world we live in. Which opinions, if any, resonated with you?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 29, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : August 16, 2022
• Cast : B.J. Novak , Issa Rae , Dove Cameron
• Director : B.J. Novak
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Queer actors
• Studio : Focus Features
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Brothers and Sisters
• Character Strengths : Curiosity
• Run time : 94 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language and brief violence
• Last updated : May 22, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Advertisement

Vance Calls School Shootings a Grim ‘Fact of Life’ as He Backs Increased Security

Democrats seized on his comments, arguing that JD Vance was resigned to the reality of school shootings.

By Simon J. Levien

• Sept. 5, 2024

Senator JD Vance of Ohio said on Thursday that school shootings were an unfortunate “fact of life,” and he called for strengthened security measures in public schools while he spoke at a campaign event in Phoenix.

After Mr. Vance delivered remarks on border security, a reporter from CNN, who was first drowned out by booing, asked him about what he would do to prevent school shootings in light of the fatal shootings of two students and two teachers at Apalachee High School in Georgia on Wednesday.

Mr. Vance, former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate, first condemned the shooting in Georgia as “an awful tragedy” that should never have happened, and he said his thoughts and prayers were with the families.

“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Mr. Vance said, adding that he believed gun restrictions were not the way to effectively prevent school shootings. “We have got to bolster security in our schools.”

Mr. Vance said that he was reluctant to support increased security measures in schools but that is “increasingly the reality we live in.”

Democrats have seized upon his comments, arguing that Mr. Vance was resigned to the reality of school shootings.

“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know we can take action to keep our children safe and keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, said in a statement. “Donald Trump and JD Vance will always choose the N.R.A. and gun lobby over our children. That is the choice in this election.”

William Martin, a spokesman for Mr. Vance, contested this characterization.

“Harris has called for all police officers to be removed from schools, putting children all over America at risk. It’s yet another example of how Kamala Harris’s weak, failed and dangerously liberal agenda makes her unfit for office,” Mr. Martin said in a statement.

At a speech in Portsmouth, N.H., on Wednesday, Ms. Harris addressed the Georgia school shooting. She has previously called for universal background checks and an assault weapon ban but did not call for any policy changes in her remarks.

“We’ve got to stop it, and we have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all,” she said. “You know it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Mr. Trump has in the past encouraged the public to move on from mass shootings. After a shooting in a high school in Perry, Iowa, resulted in three deaths in January, Mr. Trump told an audience of supporters they have to “move forward.”

“It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here,” he said. “But have to get over it — we have to move forward.”

Chris Cameron contributed reporting.

Simon J. Levien is a Times political reporter covering the 2024 elections and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Simon J. Levien