Vengeance (2022)

Actor, writer, director, BJ Novack decided to try to knock it out of the park with his first directoral effort tackling the fissures in American society at a time when many feel the nation is more divided then ever while also wrestling with race relations, gender dynamics, addictions, media exploitation, and packaging it all into a mystery/comedy. It's all a little ambitious and not quite always successful but damn is it ever a fascinating watch. 

The premise allows for a Blue State meets Red State discourse but really Novack smartly focuses his attention mostly on the Blue through his own character. He allows his Texas characters to be real and fully realized humans, well the main ones which get the most screen time and he attempts not to trivialize them with a few exceptions for humour, but mostly he saves his biting critique for himself, played by himself, representing Progressive America. His approach is self-depreciating and through that is to in many ways celebrate urban, educated American culture while also doing a pretty good job of taking himself down a peg or four skillfully exposing many faults and weaknesses of his identity group. The liberal in me was both open to the self-awareness raised while also cheering on some of his moments celebrating who we are as well. 

He goes easier on his Red State characters. While he does tap into quite a few of the critiques of that culture and there are quite a few good laughs at their expense, they often feel like the subjects are also in on the joke. Vengeance spends a lot of time letting both sides laugh at themselves in a way that feels rather cathartic. Yet he doesn't let them completely off the hook either. Vengeance does try to be on all sides all at once, laughing at both sides and giving each some reasons to adore them yet in this it doesn't always pull it off. Some of it feels a bit rote or expected at least. And sometimes the punches feel like they are being pulled. But he mostly pulls it off. 

The film wrestles a bit with the fact that its premise requires the "fridging" of a female (basically) off screen character. The film even deliberately names the fictional podcast being made "Dead White Girl." But it doesn't quite go far enough to wrestle with this, even with its ending which taps into the complicity of everyone around, including the audience of this film itself. So while I might have wanted the ending to feel a bit more of an indictment, it still gets the ideas of this across. 

The script itself it mostly entertaining. Some of the plot points feel a bit forced and I'm not sure I bought all of what needed to happen to get from A to B to C to D but the story was satisfying enough I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. It wasn't quite as funny as I had hoped but there were still good laughs. Generally Vengeance is pretty good and the potential is showing. It just felt like it didn't quite hit the bullseye all the time but got very very close. 

Vengeance 

Starring: BJ Novack, Issa Rae, Boyd Holbrook, Asthon Kutcher, J Smith-Cameron, Dove Cameron, Isabella Amara, Lio Tipton, John Mayer

Writer/Director: BJ Novack