With 'Vengence', writer, director, star B. J. Novak seeks to create a cinematic document of our time, a movie designed to date, a time capsual of American cultural dysfunction in the early 2020's. Here we have our love of true crime podcasts, or regional cultural divides, rampant conspiracism, our highly connected digital lives and highly fragmented interpersonal ones.
Novak plays a writer for The New Yorker who travels to rural Texas to attend the funeral of a casual hook up, who (for reasons reveled in the course of the film) left her family with the impression that the two were a serious item. She had died of an opiate overdose, an all too common story, but her family is convinced she was murdered. Not believing this, but sensing an opportunity to break into podcasting, Novak starts an investigation and it's not long before even he starts to think there was more to this death then a simple overdose.
It's a solid screenplay, there are clues suddely hidden throughout, and the mix of comedy and weighter matters generally works. The characters are all fairly easily typed, but enough of them are given just enough complication to be interesting as people. Novak's trademark mix of the likable and shallow serves him well here as audiance avatar. The film is reasonably observant, what it has to say is not particularly deep, but it's way of saying it intrigues. Many of the film's more notable asides are put into the mouth of Ashton Kutchner as an eccentric small town record producer, he's never sounded so deep.
A smart and subtle satire, refreshingly different, bitting with some really good bits, but comes a little short of its full ambitions. ***1/2
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