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“Vengeance” the title alone suggests that it is yet another action movie, but the summary suggests otherwise. But the term vengeance was definitely mentioned and from both the title and the summary, it is clear that it has different intentions. The first feature documentary by B.J Novak, ‘Vengeance’ definitely has a lot more to offer than what meets the eye. To make matters worse, it probably has too much.
The narrative takes an interesting turn when B.J Novak’s ‘public intellectual’ character Ben Manalowitz receives a call one night in his Manhattan apartment. The call is from Ty Shaw who is staying in a remote part of West Texas. Roads from both Abilene and Dallas are almost two hours away from where he is living. Ty tells Ben that he needs to talk to his girlfriend who unfortunately goes by Abilene as well, but goes by Abby to save her from confusion. The news is shocking. She is dead.
Ben, on the other hand, does not have a girlfriend that goes by the name of Abby. In reality, he is a well-known player and tends to sleep around. But Ben’s character in ‘Vengeance‘ makes a very interesting claim that once he heard this, his phone made him realize that he had indeed slept with aspiring singer Abby, and out of all the girls, her name was the one that he befriended on both Tinder and Facebook.
Somehow, he manages to persuade himself to travel to Abby’s hometown, attending her funeral and mourning with her grieving family, which also comprises her younger sisters, Paris (Isabella Amara) and Kansas City (Dove Cameron), kid brother El Stupido (Elli Abrams Beckel), and mother Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron). Then, Ty tells Ben that Abby was killed, probably by a Mexican drug dealer named Sancholo (Zach Villa), and asks if he will help the family seek, well, you know.
At first, it feels strange that he would fly to Texas for the funeral of a woman he did not even know, but it all begins to make sense once he starts speaking with the family. Ben is a narcissist, who views every relation or experience as a building block to strengthen his status as a writer and some sort of celebrity. To him, what matters most is that he can successfully pigeonhole them into his prefabricated notions of “Red State” and “Blue State” people. He shares his theories of “Temporal Dislocation.” According to him, with everything modern technology sets forth, every individual can choose not to exist within the present. Vengeance, he believes, is exclusively a backward-looking urge.
Curious about the possibility of a great American novel podcast, Ben decides to capture audio material to create an audio series with Eloise, a New York-based NPR editor. He even references Capote’s In Cold Blood throughout the entire series. While Issa Rae works wonders portraying Eloise, there is only so much she can do with a thinly written role.
If Ben’s vision sounds like something you would hear over a true crime podcast, then you would not be wrong in assuming that. Whether it’s brunch or pondering the very existence of law, ‘truth’, and other concepts, all statements can be tied to the murder of an utterly innocent ‘person.’ Ben knows that he is sliding toward a cliche, and so does Eloise who jokes that he is the only podcaster white man in America. But, just like the rest of them, they conform to the media templates and cliches, regardless of their objective.
The movie, unfortunately, does too.
Vengeance operates like an op-ed in a film while simultaneously checking off every visual guide to American life. It offers details and concepts crafted into characters not yet shown in cinema but that blend with the norm set by the existing structure. These characters are versatile, incredibly wired, and at the same time, baffling. The world is divided by an enormous gap where on one side lies a nation of ‘coastal elites’ whose source of learning arises from Harvard likely endorsed by a Jewish culture where there is no scope of recalling learned material post its completion. These people use their education as a tool to impose themselves on others, shamelessly derogating monogamous relationships, while foolishly assuming that every region above their doted coastline is horrifically barbaric. And on this self-inflicted wasteland is what they presume to be a burger joint, ‘Whataburger’ that caters to semi-automatic, multi-personal arms settlements for their ‘loved’ ones. The other extreme side polished cute civilization with a healthy addiction to pop culture and name-dropping, and ironically feeding off the media provided a self-inflicted loop.
Contemplating Ben is an enigma of its own, and it is creditable to Novak if we manage to cut through Ben’s champagne words and radio-ready voice to reach the character’s self-hatred (and the apparent self-loathing of the filmmaker too). More often than not, Ben seems to be performing the role of the leading actor in a French farce rather than an American one or the way Canadian comedian Ken Finkleman played his roles in “The Newsroom” and “More Tears”. There’s little talking about racial grievance as a driving factor for politics within the movie, while it is safe to say that no one brings up Trump, nor Greg Abbott, or the conversion of Texas to an authoritarian nation-state. The movie lures the audience into a minefield but carefully refrains from revealing them to most of the mines. Still, these dangers linger beneath the surface and do go off from time to time, especially when the drug crisis that is ravaging white middle America sits at the center of the narrative.
The supporting characters are the most interesting. Some look bland when they appear for the first time but they often show a lot of personality. Smith-Cameron is underused at first, but she ends up being the emotional center of Ben’s story. And her final scene? Wow, it is fierce. There are a number of great scenes with Abby’s one-time record producer Quinten Sellers, that bizarre West Texan who lives in a combination home, studio, and cult center, and also happens to be a Spector for the rest of us. He lectures the girls he used to call ‘his talent’ plus hangers-on about time, space, individuality, art, drugs, and a bunch of other topics that would make Marlon Brando or Dennis Hopper the perfect cast for an American art film of the 1970s. Selling Out is played by Ashton Kutcher, who is perhaps the best example of a guy playing himself. Sam Shepard with polite but creepy intensity and slender frame wore a ten-gallon white cowboy hat. It’s like he returned to play Colonel Walter Kurtz.
Novak has plenty of opinions to share regarding the United States of America in 2022, and he certainly has insightful fueled criticisms to make. Unfortunately, Novak prefers to feature everything he wants to say in a single film. This approach leads to a disorganized yet sporadically funny and at times interesting work. Although, it does have potential. From what can be gleaned, the movie is continuously battling with the problems of hyperscheduling the concept, and suffering because of it, as well as being entrapped by the same misconceptions regarding,” Red” and “Blue” reactionary and progressive, America. First and foremost, the phrase red and blue does ring a few bells, and for most people that immediately brings up the questions of stereotypes and Big Tech censorship. The first fifteen minutes are nearly unbearable, but as the film unfolds, it improves in entertainment value and even takes some unexpected turns, and its last act, proves to be quite the spectacle by not giving the audience what they anticipate. It’s not surprising that Novak could’ve strung together some form of a two-hour premiering showcase, South by Southwest welcoming him with open arms, but instead, he chose to make an actual movie.
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