Along with everything else, Covid shut down movie production for a while, which means we've been in a real drought while Hollywood catches up. We are finally getting to see some movies that got delayed by the pandemic, and “Vengeance,” written and directed by B.J. Novak (“The Office”), may be the best of the bunch!
Novak plays Ben, a stereotypical, young, callow, New Yorker. He works as a writer and spends his free time hooking up with lots of different girls, but he dreams of being a pod-caster. Ben gets a mystifying call saying that his “girlfriend” Abby has died. Apparently, one of his hook-ups took their relationship a lot more seriously than Ben did, and now she has died of an overdose. Pressured by her family, Ben flies to Texas for the funeral. There, he is told that Abby “would never take so much as an ibuprofen.” Her brother Ty (Boyd Holbrook) is convinced that she was actually murdered, and he wants Ben to help him avenge her. Suddenly, Ben has a subject for a pod-cast!
“Vengeance” could easily be just another fish-out-of-water comedy, but Novak's writing and acting really elevate this film above its genre. He gets an assist from an outstanding supporting cast. J. Smith-Cameron is quietly brilliant as Abbey's mom, while Ashton Kutcher is flamboyantly brilliant as a philosophical record producer, and Issa Rae is just adorable as Ben's editor. Boyd Holbrook, however, steals the show as Abby's brother. He is that rare actor who is charismatic, but completely disappears into his role. He is such a chameleon that it wasn't until I researched the film that I realized he plays The Corinthian in “The Sandman” series, which I had just watched.
In the end, though, it is B.J. Novak's writing that makes “Vengeance” such a great film. Everyone wants to write a story for our times, a tale that addresses our Red State/Blue State divide and reminds us of all we still have in common. Novak's script manages to do it while delivering quite a few laughs.
4 stars out of 5
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