vengeance the movie reviews

Supported by

‘Vengeance’ Review: A Dish Best Served With Frito Pie

In this comedic culture-war thriller, B.J. Novak, who wrote and directed, plays an aspiring podcaster chasing a true-crime story in West Texas.

Share full article

By A.O. Scott

Ben Manalowitz, who writes for The New Yorker (he’s played by B.J. Novak, who has been published in its pages ), wants to break into podcasting. “Not every white guy in America needs to have a podcast,” someone tells him, but this white guy sees the platform as a perfect stage for his ambitions and his big thoughts about America.

Ben has a theory about the divided, discontented state of the country. Eloise (Issa Rae), a receptive, well-connected, somewhat skeptical producer, tells him that what he needs is a story. Their brief debate about the relative merits of theories and stories distills a conundrum that will be familiar to journalists and other writers. Are we looking for facts or ideas? Characters or historical forces? Generalities or particulars? These questions are the key to “Vengeance,” which tries to have it both ways by reverse engineering its story about the treachery of storytelling from a theory about the danger of theorizing.

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.

The same could be said about Ben, who is also, at least at the start of the movie, the object of Novak’s most brutal, knowing satire. We first meet him at a party on a terrace with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge, where he and a pal spin elaborate philosophical justifications for their cynical, transactional approach to sex and romance. The way Ben intellectualizes his own shallowness feels so accurate — and so repellent — that you may wonder if the film can redeem him enough to make another 90 minutes in his company anything but insufferable.

But what looks like yet another self-conscious, New York-centric satire of white male media-elite entitlement turns into something else. A few other things, really, including a fish-out-of-water comedy and a twisty detective story, with Ben as both fish and gumshoe.

A late-night phone call dispatches him to West Texas, where an aspiring singer he has hooked up with a few times in New York has been found dead under a pump jack in an oil field. Ben knew her as Abby, though he might not have known that it was short for Abilene. (In haunting, posthumously viewed video clips, she’s played by Lio Tipton.) Ben’s number was in her cellphone, and her family is under the impression that he was the love of her life.

Ben flies out to the funeral, where he is welcomed into Abilene’s big Texas family. There are two sisters (Isabella Amara and Dove Cameron) also named for cities, a no-nonsense mom (J. Smith-Cameron), a salty grandma (Louanne Stephens, who also played a Texas granny on “Friday Night Lights”) and two brothers, the younger of whom (Eli Abrams Bickel) answers to El Stupido.

The older one, Ty (Boyd Holbrook), dragoons Ben into the scheme that gives the movie its title and its momentum. Ty is convinced that Abilene’s death was the result of a shadowy, nefarious conspiracy, and that her killers need to be dealt with. In his feverish ramblings, Ben hears an opportunity for audio gold. True crime. A first-person meditation on American Life. An inquiry into the nature of storytelling and the slipperiness of truth. Eloise agrees — “a dead white girl: the holy grail of podcasting” — and ships him the necessary recording equipment.

The best part of “Vengeance” is the middle, during which Novak humanizes cultural stereotypes — including Ben himself — without losing his sense of humor. It turns out that people are complicated, and that they can surprise you. This is the kind of insight that is easily oversold, since it depends on an assumption that the audience thinks otherwise. But Ben’s superficial self-awareness is replaced by active curiosity (he is a writer, after all), and he comes to feel genuine tenderness for Ty, Granny and the rest. He also meets other local characters who knew Abilene and who aren’t who they seem to be, including a drug dealer (Zach Villa) and a mystical record producer (Ashton Kutcher).

For a while, glib sociology and facile plotting take a back seat to sharp, low-key humanist comedy. Novak, who has published a collection of short stories and a children’s book , is a deft writer and (as we know from “The Office” ) a nimble ensemble player. A sitcom version of “Vengeance,” with Ben embedded in Abilene’s hometown, might be worth a few seasons on a streaming platform, and for about 45 minutes the movie functions as a pretty good pilot for that.

Ben develops an appreciation for Whataburger and Frito pie, learns a hard lesson about college football fandom and discovers that rural red-staters and urban blue-staters share certain aspirations (fame, self-expression) and cultural reference points (Anton Chekhov, Liam Neeson) while remaining out of sync on other matters. It’s when dealing — or not — with those matters that “Vengeance” turns coy and skittish. Gun culture and the opioid crisis receive cursory attention, but the movie mostly wishes away the sand in the gears of the American experiment.

Nobody has much to say about politics, race, religion, immigration or any of the other stuff we are always fighting about. Maybe Novak’s point is that, face to face and heart to heart, we don’t really fight as much as our social media avatars and elected representatives do. That’s a comforting idea, but this movie’s sophisticated theorizing and busy storytelling can’t disguise its essential banality.

Vengeance Rated R. Guns, drugs and digital audio. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

Season 49 of “Saturday Night Live” has ended. Here’s a look back at its most memorable monologues, sketches, product parodies and impressions .

“Megalopolis,” the first film from the director Francis Ford Coppola in 13 years, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Here’s what to know .

Why is the “Planet of the Apes” franchise so gripping and effective? Because it doesn’t monkey around, our movie critic writes .

Luke Newton has been in the sexy Netflix hit “Bridgerton” from the start. But a new season will be his first as co-lead — or chief hunk .

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

an image, when javascript is unavailable

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

‘Vengeance’ Review: B.J. Novak’s Very Funny Directorial Debut Is a Razor-Sharp Podcast Noir

David ehrlich.

Share on Facebook
Share to Flipboard
Share on LinkedIn
Show more sharing options
Submit to Reddit
Post to Tumblr
Print This Page
Share on WhatsApp

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Focus Features releases the film in theaters on Friday, July 29.

At the risk of damning an impressively strong debut with faint praise, B.J. Novak ’s “ Vengeance ” is perhaps the best possible movie someone could make out of a murder-mystery that starts with John Mayer standing on the rooftop bar of a Soho House (where he’s waxing philosophical about the pointlessness of monogamy in a world so fractured that people have been reduced to mere concepts, like “Becky Gym,” “Sarah Airplane Bathroom,” or any of the actual names he’s assigned to the scores of semi-anonymous women in his phone), but doesn’t end with the musician dead in a ditch somewhere.

In fact, Mayer never shows up again. He sticks around just long enough for you to assume the worst about what’s to come — oh yay, the other, other guy from “The Office” remade “Swingers” for the Tinder set, and cast someone who once referred to his dick as a white supremacist in the Vince Vaughn role — and then recedes into the background of a wickedly sharp film that satirizes our rush to judgment in a society where unprecedented chaos has forced people to rely on the stabilizing confidence of their own convictions.

Whatever you think of Novak, or even if you never think of him at all, there’s no doubt that he knows what he’s doing here. He knows that it’s hard to root for a rich and famous white Harvard alum who’s got enough chutzpah to star in his own first movie, just as he knows that most people will suspect he made it on a whim instead of white-knuckling his way through it for years on end. And so he’s leaned into the skid, leveraging the sheer insufferableness of his own project (along with the specific appeal of his “Buster Keaton meets Ira Glass” screen persona) into a very funny movie that’s strong enough to lift the crushing weight of our worst assumptions about each other and shine a light onto the regrets that fester underneath.

And hoo-boy does “Vengeance” sound insufferable. Once the movie reveals its maddeningly clever premise — equal parts “why has God forsaken us?” and “why didn’t I think of that?” — you might find yourself desperate for Mayer and his “David Duke cock” to come back and keep talking. Novak plays Ben Manalowitz, a self-absorbed staff writer for the New Yorker who’s so eager to have a voice that he doesn’t really care what he says with it. Much like his close personal friend John Mayer, Ben merely sees other people as concepts, and can’t abide the idea of a meaningful relationship with someone who has their own agency or perspective. I mean, how would that even work?

Maybe that’s why he only starts fixating on Abilene Shaw (Lio Tipton, their performance confined to iPhone video clips) after she has a fatal overdose in a Texas oil field, when he can make whatever he wants out of her memory. In life, she was just some doe-eyed singer chick who Ben half-remembered hooking up with a couple of times. In death, she’s the perfect subject for the “Serial”-esque podcast that falls into Ben’s lap when Abby’s brother (an exquisite Boyd Holbrook as Ty) calls him in the middle of the night and strong-arms Novak’s avocado milquetoast Brooklyn millennial into flying to the heart of “No Country for Old Men” Texas for the funeral.

For some reason, Abby’s gun-toting, rodeo-loving family thinks that Ben was her boyfriend. For some reason, Ty thinks that his sister was murdered. And for some reason, Ben decides to help him get to the bottom of it.

What starts as a fish-out-of-water story about a New York Jew in #MAGAland, full of broad characterizations (Ty says that Ben reminds him of his least favorite Liam Neeson revenge thriller, “Schindler’s List”) and sitcom-like misunderstandings (e.g. the cringe-worthy scene where Ben is forced to give an impromptu speech at Abby’s funeral) soon gives way to something a bit more curious. The transition begins to take hold from the moment that Ben starts recording his time in Texas, collecting audio for the podcast he pitches to his producer friend at NPR or whatever this movie’s fictional stand-in for it is called.

Eloise is played by Issa Rae, who’s very good at her job of convincing us that “Dead White Girl” is something that could actually make it to air. “Not every white guy needs a podcast,” she tells Ben, but turning Abby’s death into content is the only way he can mine any meaning from it. So he pledges to find and identify the person who killed her. And what if she wasn’t actually murdered? “I will find the generalized societal force responsible, and I will define it.”

Imagine “Under the Silver Lake” remade as a crowd-pleasing segment of “This American Life” and you’ll have a rough idea as to how “Vengeance” unfolds from there, as our not-so-humble narrator begins to look under the surface of our hopelessly divided country and see beyond his own shadow for the first time in his life. The discoveries cut both ways. Not only does the Shaw family defy Ben’s condescending expectations for such red state folk, but listening to them talk — recorder always in hand — opens his mind to things he never realized about his own place in the world.

That proves doubly true of Ben’s conversations with local music producer Quentin Sellers ( Ashton Kutcher in full tech-guru mode), whose Marfa studio might seem cultish if not for how lucidly he speaks to the fragmentation of our social fabric, and how even the smartest of people will seek refuge in myth once their civilization abdicates any greater responsibility for collective truth. In some places, that means perpetuating conspiracies about the Deep State and stolen elections. In others, that means drawing thematic connections between disparate events and punctuating them with ads for Mailchimp.

Of course, there isn’t any doubt over which group Novak is addressing here. “Vengeance” is clearly made by and for the kind of “coastal elites” who haven’t been within spitting distance of a Republican since Act II of “Hamilton,” an audience this film often flatters, sometimes condemns, and always speaks to in a shared lingua franca . If Novak’s script takes great pains to subvert our expectations of its Southern characters, it typically does that by playing into them at the same time (a tactic enabled by the genius of casting Kentucky native J. Smith-Cameron as Abby’s warmly bullshit-intolerant mom, the “Succession” star wrapping her savage wit around a core of countrified truth).

The results can be laugh-out-loud funny even when they’re schematic, and vice-versa. Case in point: The bit when Granny Carole (a riotous Louanne Stephens) gives Ben the stink-eye when he gets a Raya notification, not because this Whataburger-worshiping “Friday Night Lights” extra doesn’t know what that is, but rather because she can’t believe some wannabe podcaster — “Joe Rogan meets Seth Rogen” — was allowed to register for the site. Abby’s little brother is a deranged yokel named El Stupido (Elli Abrams Bickel) who sleeps with a loaded Glock instead of a stuffed animal, but does so on the floor next to Abby’s bed because he’s a sweet kid who’s scared of ghosts even now that his sister has become one. Abby’s sister Kansas City (Dove Cameron) is a Tik-Tok obsessed wannabe celebrity who’s excited by Ben’s relative power in the media world… and sees right through his intentions for the podcast.

And then there’s Ty, a wonderful character who could easily have been a himbo doofus in lesser hands. “Vengeance” is only able to get away with so much — possibly even murder? — because of how well Holbrook keeps us guessing whether the story of Abby’s death is much simpler than it appears, or much more complicated. Even when the jokes miss the mark or the central mystery seems too easily solved, “Vengeance” is sustained by the question of what its characters mean to each other; a question asked sweetly but shrouded by an ever-growing darkness that allows the film to wander into dangerous territory by the end, as cinematographer Lyn Moncrief gradually chips away at the camerawork’s streaming-ready sheen until his images assume the grit of a border town neo-noir.

If that slow-burn sourness never feels the least bit forced, perhaps that’s because Texas has long been home to stories about people using each other’s memories for personal motivation. Remember the Alamo? But what use are we to each in a world so atomized into separate truths that people can mean anything to anyone, and therefore nothing at all? It’s a modern idea that “Vengeance” successfully explores in a hard-boiled context, Novak’s movie held together by the unexpected overlap it finds between those two dimensions.

Nowhere is that more clever or damning than in the sequence where Ben interviews the various authorities who passed the buck on investigating Abby’s death, all of them (local cops, border cops, highway cops, etc.) claiming that the corpse wasn’t found in their jurisdiction. Everyone gets their turn, everyone has their take, and by the time her case has been run through the news cycle, nobody seems to care about the victim at the center of it anymore. She’s just another season of “Serial” waiting to happen. Unless, that is, Ben is able to write a better ending for Abby’s story — unless he’s willing to find his own measure of truth in it.

“Vengeance” premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Focus Features will release it in theaters on Friday, July 29.

Most Popular

More like this

Did you know

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

User reviews 293

claytonchurch1
Apr 25, 2023
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

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 47 minutes

More to explore

‘Vengeance’ is a startlingly good first film from B.J. Novak

The multi-hyphenate produced, wrote, directed and stars in this sharp black comedy

The movie “Vengeance” — a black comedy about cultural arrogance, the opioid crisis, guns, storytelling and the need to, well, get even — marks the feature debut of writer-director-producer B.J. Novak (best known as a writer, director, producer and ensemble cast member of “The Office”). 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, which might only surprise those who aren’t familiar with Novak’s best-selling children’s book, “The Book With No Pictures.”

Novak also stars here, as journalist Ben Manalowitz, a sometime New Yorker magazine writer and podcaster for the “This American Life”-esque “American Moment,” with a Manhattan-centric view of flyover country to rival the geographic myopia satirized by illustrator Saul Steinberg in his famous 1976 cover for that magazine, “ View of the World From 9th Avenue .” When Ben gets a call from the brother of Abby Shaw — an aspiring singer Ben “hooked up” with a few times, in his words — telling him that she has died of an overdose of OxyContin and insisting — inexplicably to Ben — that Abby (short for Abilene) would have wanted her “boyfriend” to attend the funeral, he is given no choice but to agree. Once Ben reluctantly flies out to West Texas and the brother, Ty (Boyd Holbrook), informs Ben that he believes Abby’s death was murder and that the two of them should collaborate to avenge it, violently, Ben hits upon an idea, but only after pitching it to his podcast editor back home (Issa Rae).

Ben will do some interviews and put together a story: perhaps not the kind of investigative exposé Ty expects, but one that looks at Texas, and Abby (Lio Tipton, seen in cellphone video clips and recorded music performances), as symptoms of a deeper malaise. Ty calls that an acceptable compromise. “Once the people on Reddit find out” who the murderer is, he says, “they’ll kill him for us.” But all that Ben has really promised, in his cagey way, is this: to find the person — or, as he carefully puts it, “the generalized societal force” — responsible for Abby’s death, and to “define” it.

It’s a slippery vow, and it suggests, for obvious reasons, that what follows is going to involve an unfairly patronizing caricature of rural American life and the Shaws, including Granny Carole (Louanne Stephens), mom Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron), sisters Paris and Kansas City (Isabella Amara and Dove Cameron), and little brother Mason, a.k.a. El Stupido (Eli Abrams Bickel).

But Novak is too smart for that, and if anyone comes across badly here, it’s Ben, whom Novak is big enough and self-effacing enough to gently ridicule. The supporting cast gets off relatively easy, and includes a remarkable performance by Ashton Kutcher as Abby’s slick and silver-tongued record producer, Quentin Sellers. Quentin is a kind of cowboy poet/philosopher in a 10-gallon hat and embroidered white suit that looks like something made by the late tailor-to-the-country-western-stars Nudie Cohn . Under Novak’s low-key direction, Kutcher never pushes the performance too far. Like the narrative itself, which zigs when you expect it to zag, Quentin is full of surprises.

Superficially, “Vengeance” is a murder mystery, with its share of red herrings, a password-protected cellphone belonging to the victim and a Suspect No. 1: drug dealer Sancholo (Zach Villa), who also turns out to be something other than expected.

If “Vengeance” has a weakness, it’s that it sometimes comes across as a little too written, for lack of a better word. Too often, characters talk in a way that sounds less like themselves than like a guy at the keyboard of a laptop: a little bit Ben Manalowitz and a little bit B.J. Novak.

It’s a small quibble. This is a movie worth seeing, and listening to its unpredictable insights. There’s a running joke in the film: Ben signals his assent, over and over, with the hyperbolic catchphrase “a hundred percent.” Is “Vengeance” a flawless movie? No, but it’s 90 percent perfect.

R. At area theaters. Contains coarse language, drug use and brief violence. 107 minutes.

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

Three men in contemporary western attire amid snow flurries in the movie "Vengeance."

Show more sharing options
Copy Link URL Copied!

“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.

For your safety

The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the CDC and local health officials .

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.

A woman with a phone in front of a whiteboard in the movie "Vengeance."

“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

Review: ‘The Strangers - Chapter 1’ is a rote rehash that lacks the original film’s creepy suspense

May 16, 2024

Review: In ‘Femme,’ a secret act of vengeance comes disguised as erotic flirtation

March 30, 2024

Review: ‘Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World’ is media satire at its most darkly funny

March 20, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Anya Taylor-Joy in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Village Roadshow Pictures' action adventure FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA, a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

Entertainment & Arts

‘Furiosa’ and ‘Garfield’ tussle over worst Memorial Day weekend box office in 29 years

May 26, 2024

Dr. Wang (Terry Chen) and Dr. Bartnovsky (Greg Kinnear) in "Sight."

‘Sight’ highlights the journey and faith of an Asian American medical hero who helped the blind see

May 25, 2024

Sean Baker’s ‘Anora’ wins Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival

A woman listens to a voice on a red phone.

The six best movies we saw at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival

Stranger Things Season 5
Deadpool and Wolverine
The Batman 2
Spider-Man 4
Yellowstone Season 6
Fallout Season 2
The Last of Us Season 2
Entertainment

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.

With its Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom ad, Nintendo just made one of 2023’s best movies
Glass Onion trailer unveils a new Knives Out murder mystery
Lewis Tan on Fistful of Vengeance and the art of a movie fight

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.

Editors' Recommendations

Like Fast X? Here are 5 more action movies just like it
Apple’s MLS Season Pass is about more than just streaming games
The Office star B.J. Novak on how Vengeance is more than just a crime thriller

Almost a full decade after the release of Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller is back making movies in the universe that has defined his legacy. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga hit theaters on May 24, and if you're coming out of that movie on a high, you might be looking for other movies that will give you a similar feeling.

While the obvious place to start is likely with the rest of the Mad Max saga, and with Fury Road in particular, those picks are a little too on the nose for this list. Instead, we're assuming that you want the same highs that Furiosa gave you, but are looking outside of the Mad Max franchise. We've selected three movies with similar vibes that are the perfect place to get started. The Northman (2022) THE NORTHMAN - Official Trailer - Only In Theaters April 22

All Elite Wrestling (AEW) fans know that Memorial Day weekend means one thing: Double or Nothing. The Double or Nothing pay-per-view event was the first PPV in company history, back in May 2019. Fast-forward to Sunday night, and Double or Nothing remains one of the company's marquee events.

The 2024 AEW Double or Nothing match card is stacked with intriguing matchups. AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland makes his first PPV title defense against Christian Cage. Double or Nothing also marks the AEW in-ring debut of Mercedes Moné, who takes on Willow Nightingale for the AEW TBS Championship. When and where is 2024 AEW Double or Nothing? AEW Double or Nothing - LIVE on Pay Per View | Sunday, May 26 | 8e/5p

Amazon Prime Video is a terrific streaming platform that splits its offerings between cinematic and episodic classics, as well as new releases. One genre that gets a lot of attention on this VOD hub is thrillers. With no shortage of pulse-pounding titles on tap, Prime Video’s best thrillers force you to think while you’re glued to the edge of your seat.

It’s our job to stay up on the platform’s latest and greatest offerings, so we’ve rounded up all the best thriller movies on Prime Video for June 2024. Amazon Prime may have a robust catalog, but it doesn't have everything. Luckily, we've also curated roundups of the best thrillers on Netflix and the best thrillers on Hulu.

International edition
Australia edition
Europe edition

Vengeance review – a New Yorker turns sleuth in Texas in mildly amusing comedy-mystery

BJ Novak directs and stars as a New York podcaster who travels south to investigate the death of an ex

N ew Yorker, serial dater and seemingly the only man left in Manhattan without his own podcast, Ben (played by BJ Novak , who also wrote and directed) spots an opportunity when he learns of the death of one of his many casual flings. According to her brother, Ty (Boyd Holbrook), Abby described Ben as her boyfriend. Strong-armed into attending her funeral, Ben is intrigued to learn that Ty believes his sister was murdered. The potential for a true crime podcast is too tempting to pass up, so Ben moves in with Abby’s extremely Texan family and their guns to investigate.

His podcast starts as a wry musing on modern America through the colourful local characters, but evolves as Ben sheds his metropolitan superiority and learns from his hosts. The wide, arid emptiness of the landscape – the film’s cinematography has a stark beauty – starts to exert a pull on him.

Novak seems determined to have his frito pie and eat it: he employs the broadest of cultural stereotypes while also mocking his central character for his stereotypical views. It’s mildly amusing stuff that delivers no surprises, but may muster a few laughs.

The Observer
Drama films
Comedy films

Comments (…)

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

B.j. novak and issa rae in ‘vengeance’: film review | tribeca 2022.

Novak directs himself alongside Rae and Ashton Kutcher in a film about a New York wannabe podcaster who ventures into the West Texas desert.

By John DeFore

John DeFore

Share on Facebook
Share to Flipboard
Send an Email
Show additional share options
Share on LinkedIn
Share on Pinterest
Share on Reddit
Share on Tumblr
Share on Whats App
Print the Article
Post a Comment

B.J. Novak as Ben Manalowitz and Boyd Holbrook as Ty Shaw in VENGEANCE.

A callow writer attempts to use a young woman’s death as a springboard to fame in Vengeance , the filmmaking debut of actor/writer B.J. Novak . Playing the lead role, Novak personifies onscreen some of the smugness and opportunism often found when the media turns its attention to rural America. But the film isn’t entirely free of the character’s flaws; moments of insight or empathy struggle for notice above the script’s false notes and unconvincing observations. Mild fish-out-of-water humor and an element of mystery may satisfy fans of Novak’s work on the again-popular The Office , but fall short of proving he has much potential as a big-screen auteur.

Full credits

Venue: Tribeca Film Festival (Gala) Distributor: Focus Features Production company: Blumhouse Cast: B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher, J. Smith-Cameron, Eli Abrams Bickel, Lio Tipton, Dove Cameron, Isabella Amara, Louanne Stephens, Zach Villa Director-Screenwriter: B.J. Novak Producers: Jason Blum, Adam Hendricks, Greg Gilreath Executive Producers: B.J. Novak, Leigh Kilton-Smith, Christopher H. Warner Director of photography: Lyn Moncrief Production designers: Hillary Andujar, Courtney Andujar Costume designer: Rachel Sage Kunin Editors: Andy Canny, Hilda Rasula, Plummy Tucker Composer: Finneas O'Connell Casting directors: Terri Taylor, Sarah Domeier Lindo

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

‘universal language’ review: an amusingly offbeat homage to iranian cinema, by way of winnipeg , cannes: korean action maestro ryoo seung-wan on reinventing the cop movie for ‘i, the executioner’, inaugural prix luciole awards honor poster art at cannes, box office meltdown: ‘garfield’ claims victory over ‘furiosa’ with worst no. 1 memorial day opening in three decades, glen powell on why he feared he “ruined” ‘hidden figures’, lily gladstone says “it’s irrelevant whether or not” she won the oscar for ‘killers of the flower moon’.

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

DVD & Streaming
Comedy , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

July 29, 2022
B.J. Novak as Ben Manalowitz; Ashton Kutcher as Quentin Sellers; Boyd Holbrook as Ty Shaw; Lio Tipton as Abilene Shaw; Dove Cameron as Jasmine Shaw; Zach Villa as Sancholo; Issa Rae as Eloise

Home Release Date

August 16, 2022

Distributor

Focus Features

Movie Review

As far as Ben Manalowitz is concerned, he’s lived a perfectly acceptable life so far. I mean, he’s a relatively young and decidedly insightful writer for The New Yorker . How many others can say that? And his social life is going pretty great as well. Like everybody else in New York City (or at least anybody Ben cares to consider) he jumps from casual hookup to casual hookup and avoids anything more.

“Fear of commitment is really fear of regrets ,” Ben often says at any parties of like-minded people.

Despite all that, however, there’s still something missing. He wants to share more deeply with the world at large. And Ben believes he should do that through a podcast about America’s cultural divide, something that could nicely tie into his friend Eloise’s very popular American stories podcast.

Eloise tells him, however, that he has good ideas, but he needs a great story. That’s what will hook listeners. But solid stories aren’t as easy to come up with as pretentious speeches.

Then, in the dead of night the kernel of a story begins to sprout. Ben gets a call from some guy in Texas, of all places. It turns out that this man’s sister, Abby, died. And though this Abby is just another random hookup that Ben barely remembers—some young woman who dreamed of making music in New York—her brother, Ty, believes their relationship was very serious. And, of course, that means Ben will want to fly out for the funeral.

Ben agrees to do it. I mean, if he had that kind of impact on a woman he slept with once or twice, he should at least make a quick flight and leave the family with their pleasant, if mistaken, ideas of their daughter.

When Ben lands at the Texas airport, however, he finds there’s a lot more going on. Ty believes his sister was actually murdered. And he wants Ben to help him avenge that killing. Ben has no intention of doing that. But what he will do is stick around for a day or two and weave this situation into … a great story ! It can be about America’s need for conspiracy theories. All he has to do is pretend to be investigating the “murder” while recording all the players involved.

Problem is, as Ben starts digging, he begins finding things he didn’t expect. For one, this Abilene Shaw was talented and thoughtful. She was sort of remarkable in her own way.

It’s too bad Ben was too self-focused to realize that truth to begin with.

Positive Elements

Ben finds out that Abby was the type of person who would befriend an outcast and go above and beyond to help him out. And her choices had positive impacts on some in the community. She was loving to her family members. She was also a pretty good musician who loved how music could benefit people. “Heart sees heart,” was something Abby liked to say, and others adopted the phrase.

And though Ben sees Abby’s family as little more than a bunch of people driven by their feelings and not at all by their brains (and they are painted here as broad Texas stereotypes) he’s quite surprised when they welcome him in as family and show up together when he is injured.

While looking back over his phone messages with Abby, Ben also sees how callous his responses and actions were. And when pushed to face the reality of their relationship, Ben declares: “I was hooking up with different people, and I assumed she was, too. Because I live in the real world. … She wasn’t my girlfriend. She was just a girl on my phone.”

Eventually Ben realizes that the world we live in desensitizes us to one another—a cautionary note that the film delivers, too. Our social media connections leave us searching for recognition and fame and fleeting pleasures, but offer very little in the way of real meaning or connection. “Everything is everything, so nothing means anything,” someone notes.

Spiritual Elements

Ben meets a local music producer who talks about the beginnings of the universe. “Whether it was God or something else,” the man notes, “it all started with a sound.”

A friend of Abby’s tells Ben that she would call and read Harry Potter books to him when his mom wouldn’t let him read those stories because of a “church thing.”

When Ben tells Eloise about his podcast idea she retorts, “Dead white girl: the holy grail of podcasts.”

Sexual Content

Abby’s younger sister tends to wear tops and outfits that bare quite a bit of skin. And we see that’s pretty common among the young women in town. We see quite a few women at a rodeo and dancing at a local bar dressed in formfitting and cleavage-revealing tops.

Casual sex and “exercising your options” are readily accepted behaviors in both New York and Texas. Ben talks of his easy hookup lifestyle. And he gets repeated messages from several women on his phone. One of Ben’s friends notes that he is casually dating six or seven women. Someone else brings up the “emptiness of the hookup culture.”

We see men and women making out passionately at a party. And when Ben gets the call about Abby’s funeral, he’s in bed with a woman who’s name he isn’t sure of.

Violent Content

Someone is shot in the throat and forehead, and the camera watches as blood pumps out and he dies. We see someone struggling to reach her phone in an open field before slumping face down and dying.

Abby’s grandmother tells the story of the bloody massacre at the Alamo. She also notes that Abby’s murder can’t be solved with a .45. Ben heartily agrees. But then she goes on to declare that they’ll need a 12-gauge shotgun, an AK-47 and several other lethal weapons.

Ben gets punched in the stomach, and he slumps to the ground gasping for air. Mason comes into Ben’s room holding a .45 that he wants Ben to help unjam.

Ben’s car is booby trapped and it blows up, sending him sprawling in the parking lot. We later see him with bruises and scrapes on his face. Ben meets drug dealers carrying guns.

Crude or Profane Language

There are more than 25 f-words and three or four s-words in the dialogue mix, along with multiple uses of “b–ch,” “a–,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is abused a couple times (once in combinations with “d–n”). The male anatomy is crudely referenced, and someone flashes an offensive hand gesture.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Abby’s friends and relatives insist that she “never took so much as an Advil.” But her death was caused by an overdose of oxycodone. That leads Ben to investigate the drug trade in town, where he finds that booze and drugs are a big problem there. Large groups of teens and adults regularly gather in the local oil fields to party. We see people boozing and making out there at night, and we can also see that land is littered with plastic solo cups and other drug paraphernalia by day.

Interestingly, there are some abusive, heavy drinking parallels in Ben’s world. In fact, the one picture they used of Ben and Abby together for the funeral was one where they were both drinking and obviously intoxicated.

When Ben has dinner with Abby’s family, the camera catches sight of various booze bottles on their table. People drink beer and booze at a rodeo and a local bar. Some get drunk. And we see a stoned young woman being dragged away to an “after party” by a couple large men. An officer shows Ben a box filled with “oxysticks” that are sold at local parties.

The soundtrack includes Toby Keith’s hit country song “Red Solo Cup.

Other Negative Elements

Abby’s brother, Mason, is called “El Stupido” by family members. (And while he is quiet, the boy has some striking insights from time to time.)

An oilfield party spot is located where different police jurisdictions overlap. The upshot? None of the local authorities want to take responsibility for cleaning up the drug abuse (and worse) that goes on there.

Ty declares that if they can discover Abby’s killer and post the name on Reddit, other people will likely take care of the killer for them. Ben verbally lashes out at Abby’s family, accusing them of being anti-vax, conspiracy theory types who believe the Earth is flat.

It’s easy to live online so much these days that you become purposely self-segregated in your own little bubble. You, your like-minded friends and your sociocultural dogma are good . But everyone else is very, very bad! And even though real people in the real world aren’t nearly so heated and bifurcated, fueling those divisions makes for good new media. It makes money, too.

And so, the culture war marches on.

In a sense, that’s what director B.J. Novak’s Vengeance is all about. Yes, it’s couched in a giggling cowpie comedy/drama about podcasts, murder, mystery and cultural contrasts. But dig past the surface, and you’ll find a movie that bemoans our hemorrhaging humanity. It warns us to throw off our predisposed blinders and really get to know the people we think we should dislike.

That’s the side of this film worth watching and mulling over. But then there’s the other side. Foul language, hookup-culture acceptance, eye-rolling stereotypes, boozy indulgence and vengeful bloody murder are all a part of this pic’s big picture, too.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

Latest Reviews

The Garfield Movie

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Weekly reviews straight to your inbox.

‘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.

Editor’s picks

Every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history.

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.

Hollywood Crew Members Call for Safety on Set After Production-Related Deaths

The boos have it. trump ruled ineligible for libertarian nomination, lizzo reacts to 'south park' shout-out in ozempic episode: 'damn, i’m really that bitch'.

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.

'Survivor' Superfan Sia Is Done Awarding Cash Prizes to Her Favorite Contestants

No More Money
By Jodi Guglielmi

'The Beach Boys' Doc Is One Endless Summer — and Concludes the Group's Story Far Too Soon

By Joseph Hudak
State of the Union
By Krystie Lee Yandoli

Alec Baldwin Loses Bid to Dismiss ‘Rust’ Involuntary Manslaughter Charge

'RUST' TRAGEDY
By Nancy Dillon and Daniel Kreps

Trump Lawyers Send Cease-and-Desist Letter to 'The Apprentice' Producers to Block Sale

legal matters
By Daniel Kreps

Most Popular

Morgan spurlock, 'super size me' director, dies at 53, matthew perry death sparks dea, lapd joint criminal investigation, prince william & kate middleton are 'deeply upset' about the timing of the sussexes' brand relaunch, diddy yelled "like a lunatic" at chaka khan and had her son beat up, alleges her daughter, you might also like, iran’s ‘in the shadow of the cypress’ and guatemalan pablo león’s ‘remember us’ win top prizes at spain’s animayo gran canaria fest, swarovski exhibit headed to milan, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, jonathan frakes on the ‘trek’ ep he directed 31 years ago that inspired ‘discovery’ season 5, hopes for ‘legacy’ & more, connor mcdavid might not be oilers’ most valuable asset.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Link to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Hit Man Link to Hit Man
Babes Link to Babes

New TV Tonight

Eric: Season 1
We Are Lady Parts: Season 2
Geek Girl: Season 1
The Outlaws: Season 3
Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted: Season 4
America's Got Talent: Season 19
Fiennes: Return to the Wild: Season 1
The Famous Five: Season 1
Couples Therapy: Season 4
Celebrity Family Food Battle: Season 1

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Johnny Hallyday

Sylvie Testud

Irene Thompson

Anthony Chau-Sang Wong

Ka Tung Lam

More Like This

Related movie news.

Screen Rant

Vengeance's ultra-violent ending explained by bj novak.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Every Upcoming Mad Max Movie In Development

Beetlejuice 2’s delia deetz twist is fulfilling a 36-year-old wish, furiosa rotten tomatoes audience score breaks major mad max franchise record.

Writer, director, and star B.J. Novak unpacks the shockingly violent ending to his new dark comedy thriller, Vengeance , and explains its meaning. Novak is best known as a star of NBC's beloved mockumentary sitcom, The Office , in which he played Dunder Mifflin's reluctant temp, Ryan Howard. Beyond The Office , Novak has also ventured into feature films with roles in Inglourious Basterds , Saving Mr. Banks , The Amazing Spider-Man 2 , and The Founder . After honing his craft for years on episodes of The Office, Novak recently made his feature directorial debut with Vengeance .

Novak leads the film's cast as Ben Manalowitz, a journalist and aspiring podcaster who journeys from New York to West Texas to investigate the death of a former fling, Abilene, who died of drug overdose though may have been murdered. Vengeance also stars Insecure's Issa Rae as Ben's producer, The Sandman's Boyd Holbrook , Dove Cameron, Isabella Amara, J. Smith-Cameron, Lio Tipton, musician John Mayer, and Ashton Kutcher. Vengeance premiered in theaters on July 29, and the movie's brutally blooding ending, which sees Ben take matters into his own hands, has left audiences stunned and searching for answers.

Related: Ryan Was The Office's Best Villain (And It Ruined Him)

During a recent interview with IndieWire , Novak attempted to unpack Vengeance's shocking ending. The film's writer, director, and star discussed why the cathartic end was the only " inevitable " conclusion for the movie that has successfully shaken audiences, indicating Novak has done his job well. Read his explanation below:

I was actually more concerned with hiding it because to me, it felt like the only place for this movie to end. So the fact that audiences are a little shaken by it, don’t quite know what to make of it at first, is very exciting for me. It means I did pull off what I wanted it to. It is a complex country we live in right now. It’s a complex world. And morality is complex and getting lost. The way to take my character from point A to point B, point B is a very shocking place, surprising place. I like when movies or TV shows go a little further than you thought they could. It leaves you with something to think about after the movie is over.

Vengeance's ending sees a frustrated and fed-up Ben take the law into his own hands as the careless and corrupt law enforcement fail to address the urgency of the opioid epidemic, exacerbated by Abilene's family's unwillingness to acknowledge the truth. The cathartic conclusion could also be viewed as an alternate fantasy ending for Ben's story, tying in inspiration from Novak's past collaboration with Quentin Tarantino on Inglourious Basterds . According to Novak, the expectation-subverting ending also takes inspiration from writer/director Jordan Peele, whose new movie Nope opened in theaters just one week before Vengeance . Like Peele, Novak is a comedic talent who has successfully transitioned to a genre director with films that explore social issues in a unique and entertaining way.

Since premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in June before expanding to theaters late last month, Vengeance has mainly received favorable reviews from critics and audiences for Novak's sharp political satire. The film deftly explores the mounting tensions between red and blue states and the sharp divide in America today, which eventually escalates into violence in the case of Vengeance . The dark comedy is a solid directorial debut for Novak, and from this point, cinephiles will be watching his film career with great interest.

Next: What BJ Novak Has Done Since Leaving The Office

Source: IndieWire

Vengeance (2022) (2022)

Entertainment

‘Vengeance’ review: Forget ‘The Office.’ B.J. Novak’s first movie proves his true talent lies in directing

Movie review.

Attention. A major new filmmaking talent has arrived on the scene, and his name is B.J. Novak.

People may know him as that guy from “The Office” where he played Ryan Howard. He was also a writer for that long-running series. But with “Vengeance,” his directing debut, he instantly establishes himself as a first-rate, multifaceted moviemaker. In addition to directing the picture, he wrote the screenplay and plays the lead character, a guy named Ben Manalowtiz. He aces each role.

It’s a detective story. It’s an insightful commentary on the state of us, which is to say us, the U.S., in this divided, disjointed, distracted age. It’s a comedy, sharp and frequently hilarious.

It is, above all, consistently surprising. Every time you think you’ve got a fix on a character, Novak changes things up: Wait. What? Didn’t see that coming.

Novak’s character is a New York writer-hipster, a guy very full of himself whose relationships are legion and centered in the world of social media. His phone is constantly dinging and pinging with messages from his many hookups. This makes for a funny opening scene where the dings and pings are fed onto the soundtrack in an almost subliminal fashion that leaves the audience wondering, “Say, is that my phone going off?”

Until out of the ether comes a hoarse, anguished male voice informing him that the love of Ben’s life has suddenly died. To which Ben’s response is: Who?

He has almost no recollection of the woman the voice on the phone (it’s her brother) is talking about. She was just one of ever so many fleeting encounters, long forgotten.

But the voice is insistent and before he knows it Ben is in Texas, standing at her graveside, delivering her eulogy under the vast Texas sky with family and a preacher in a black cowboy hat hanging on his every awkward, faux-sensitive word. He put the tribute together on the fly, using scraps of info blurted by her grieving brother (Boyd Holbrook) as his source material. Again, very funny.

And so the detective story begins. He wants to find out who this stranger was and why she thought he meant so much to her. He goes to her social media posts to try to piece the picture together. He does this for a podcast he’s pitched to an influential producer-friend of his (Issa Rae) back in New York. With digital recorder in hand, he wades deep into the heart of Texas with the woman’s close-knit family serving as his hosts and unwitting guides in the world of Texas arcana. Deep-fried Twinkies, rodeo and gun culture are all stirred into the mix.

The brother believes his sister was murdered, maybe by a drug cartel, and wants Ben to help him track down the killers and wreak vengeance upon them. Ben has no wish to behave like someone in a Liam Neeson movie, but feels he has to play along. What’s more, he doesn’t believe the woman was murdered. He thinks that’s a conspiracy theory.

The most enigmatic and influential character he meets is a music producer played by Ashton Kutcher. It’s a career-defining performance. The character is a keen observer, an astute commentator and a smooth-talking cynic. He’s Texas to the bone yet stands slightly outside the culture to acknowledge its flaws.

Novak handles the demands of writer and director with seeming effortless ease. His dialogue is acute, the performances he draws from his fellow actors are all first rate and his direction is supremely assured.

Some of the humor is overbroad as in a segment where Ben claims not to know who triumphed at the Alamo (no sentient American is that clueless). But though he ventures now and again into stereotypes, he presents most of his characters in ultimately a sympathetic light. He’s hardest on Ben, who declares himself “a self-absorbed know-it-all.” But the guy is no dummy, and in his search for the truth about the dead woman he gains critical insights into himself.

With B.J. Novak, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher, Boyd Holbrook, J. Smith-Cameron . Directed by B.J. Novak. 107 minutes. Rated R for language and brief violence. Opens July 29 at multiple theaters.

24 Films Where Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold

Posted: May 21, 2024 | Last updated: May 21, 2024

An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. There’s something undeniably satisfying about watching a revenge fantasy and the villain getting their just desserts. Payback is a powerful motivator in cinema, driving characters to the extremes of their morals. Here, we look at 24 of the best movies focused on vengeance.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

After the death of his wife, retired hitman John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is given a puppy to remember her by. After a group of Russian gangsters kill her and beat Wick, he hunts them down for payback, immersing himself back into the criminal life. The movie was praised for <a class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/john-wick-2014" rel="noopener">establishing an underworld with its own rules</a> and rituals.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Liam Neeson stars as Bryan Mills, a retired CIA agent whose daughter and her best friend have been kidnapped by traffickers. Mills then starts a relentless and bloody quest to find them and take revenge on the perpetrators.

The Revenant

Mad Max: Fury Road

Unforgiven stars Clint Eastwood as an aging outlaw convinced to do one last job. Initially on a mission for revenge on behalf of the bounty setters, it soon gets personal, and he is pulled back into the world of violence and danger.

The Godfather

Teenager Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) wants revenge on the man who murdered her father, so she hires hunter Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track him down. Along the way, the two bond in this Western movie that was nominated for ten Academy Awards.

Django Unchained

Mild-mannered architect Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) snaps after his wife is killed and his daughter sexually assaulted in a home invasion. Realizing he has the means and will to fight back, Kersey becomes a vigilante, targeting the city’s muggers in revenge.

Léon: The Professional

A masked vigilante known only as V is fighting a totalitarian regime in the UK on a quest for revenge against those in power. Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman), the daughter of activists, gets caught up in the struggle and meets V himself.

V for Vendetta

A rock musician who was murdered is brought back to life to avenge his and his fiancée’s deaths, becoming the city’s vigilante in its battle against crime. Brandon Lee died during filming after being shot by the prop gun, but the producers decided to go ahead with the movie’s release, rewriting several scenes.

Lady Vengeance

Back from exile in Australia, barber Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) wants revenge on the judge who sent him there. He adopts the alias Sweeney Todd but is blackmailed by his former apprentice. Enraged, Todd kills him, starting a long series of murders as he takes vengeance on the world for the loss of his daughter.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Point Blank

John Creasy (Denzel Washington) is an alcoholic CIA officer who is convinced to take a job as a bodyguard. Initially disinterested, he grows close to his charge, Pita (Dakota Fanning), and is devastated when she is kidnapped. He sets out to find the kidnappers and get revenge.

Man on Fire

We all hold a soft spot for Jean-Claude Van Damme in the wake of vintage goldies, Bloodsport, and Kickboxer. Street Fighter failed us with terrible representations, a tired script, and sub-zero acting. Pop Queen Kylie Minogue couldn’t save it either.

21 Notoriously Awful Movies That People Secretly Love

<span>When you think back to the TV shows of the past, it’s hard to believe that some of them ever got the green light. At the time, they were beloved, and they defined generations. But let’s face it – times have changed, and several of them wouldn’t even make it past the pitch meeting today. Let’s look at 18 great TV shows that, for various reasons, just wouldn’t fly today.</span>

18 Formerly Beloved TV Shows That Would Flunk the Political Correctness Test Today

<span>Over the past decade, cinema has completely changed, thanks in part to filmmakers daring enough to tackle issues head-on. These “woke movies” have led to conversations and controversy. For some, these movies represent everything wrong with today’s media landscape, while for others, they’re talking about things we need to address. No matter your opinion of them, here are 18 of the wokest films from the last decade.</span>

18 Films That Went Too Woke in the Last Decade

<p>We’ve all watched those movies where we ask ourselves, “What did I just watch? Did anything really happen?” Whether you find these movies meditative or meandering, they’ve got a special place in cinematic history. So, for all you guys who’ve ever zoned out during a film and wondered, “Was it just me?” here’s a list to make you feel seen.</p>

Empty Screens: 18 Movies Where Almost Nothing Really Happens

More for You

Baking Soda Makes a Great DIY Weed Killer—Here's How to Use It

The 50 best Netflix original series of all time, according to fans

17 Reasons Why Women Over 50 Become More Angry

18 Things That Will Happen if 70 Becomes the New Retirement Age in the US

I Hate To Break It To You, But If You Recognize Literally Any Of These 50 Pictures, You Are Officially Old Now

What Does It Mean When You See “SSSS” on Your Boarding Pass?

Home maintenance expert reveals simple trick that could add years to your washing machine’s life: ‘I never knew this’

Here's the Average Income and Net Worth for American Households by Age

The Corn Shucking Hack That Makes Removing The Silk A Breeze

The Only Major Actors Still Alive From Leave It To Beaver

The Longest Living People In the World All Abide by the ‘Power 9’ Rule

This 3,000-Year-Old Sword Was So Well Preserved That It 'Almost Still Shines'

Florida governor signs controversial bill that deletes over 50 lines from state statutes: 'It's just going to make us less proactive and prepared'

The 3 loans you must pay off before retiring

Don't even think about retiring until you have these 3 things paid off — and no, your mortgage isn't one of them

Senate rankings: 10 seats most likely to flip

40 Years Ago, a Brilliantly Profane Sci-Fi Movie Turned the Genre Upside Down

All in the Family Carroll O'Connor Jean Stapleton

The Only Major Actors Still Alive From All In The Family

bag of baking soda on top of a toilet tank

What Happens When You Put Baking Soda in a Toilet Tank?

What’s So Special About a One Dollar Bill With A Star?

Baltic officials said they could send troops to Ukraine without waiting for NATO if Russia scores a breakthrough: report

close up of a woman working at an airport in a TSA uniform highlighting the badge on her chest and the patch on her arm

This Is What a TSA Agent First Notices About You

‘The Kingdom’ Review: The Daughter of a Corsican Big Shot Practices Her Aim in Cannes Standout

Director Julien Colonna uses a doomed father-daughter dynamic to critique the explosive cycle of retribution that erupted on Corsica in the ’90s.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

Cannes Awards: Female-Centered Stories Win Big in Cannes, as Sean Baker’s ‘Anora’ Earns Palme d’Or 1 day ago
‘The Most Precious of Cargoes’ Review: An Animated Fable From the Director of ‘The Artist’ Finds Hope in the Holocaust 2 days ago
‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ Review: Repression Hasn’t Chastened Mohammad Rasoulof, Who Responds With a Marathon Domestic Critique 2 days ago

At first, the violence seems limited to news reports. Every time a gangster is gunned down or a car bomb goes off in the streets of Corsica, the local channel flashes footage of the crime scene. So long as the killings are confined to television, it’s easy for 15-year-old Lesia to pretend they’re neither real nor relevant, that the people involved aren’t members of her father’s inner circle. But as “ The Kingdom ” unfolds, the attacks keep getting closer, slowly infiltrating the film itself, until finally, they’re happening right in front of her face.

Popular on Variety

Tough teenage Lesia is enjoying the summer break when her aunt whisks the girl to the middle of nowhere and drops her with her father, Pierre-Paul (Saveriu Santucci). Lesia knows the drill: Pierre-Paul has been a fugitive for as long as she can remember. Phone calls are forbidden, lest rivals or authorities are monitoring the line. If they should discover his location, all of their lives could be in danger.

Things are even more tense than usual this visit, as local news covers an assassination attempt on a politician connected to her father. A few days later, her godfather is gunned down in town. Things are obviously heating up on the island, as one or more of the rival caïds are planning a power grab, and Pierre-Paul readies his men accordingly. Audiences learn their faces from Lesia’s point of view, presented like so many surrogate uncles. Before long, TV reports are running their photos alongside footage of bullet-riddled cars and weeping widows.

Lesia adores her dad, accompanying him on fishing trips and hunting wild boar together, but when it comes time to hook the trout or pull the trigger, she makes a point of sparing the animals. And yet, in the opening scene, we see Lesia’s unflinching ability to field-dress her prey. Obviously, she does possess the capacity to kill. Over the course of “The Kingdom,” she will let go of whatever illusions she had about her father and come to terms with what his work entails.

Early on, she’s ordered to stay home while the men disappear all day. But little by little, Pierre-Paul allows Lesia to listen in on compromising conversations, revealing how they plan to strike before their rivals can get to them. A bit too old to play an innocent teen, Benedetti is nevertheless ideal to embody the alert, inquisitive side of the character. From Lesia’s perspective, Pierre-Paul is an honorable figure. The film is ambiguous enough that he could just as easily be a nationalist militant (a sort of local hero) as an organized criminal (more likely the case).

And yet, as the story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that this man who has been so benevolent to Lesia is capable of truly cold-blooded acts. Santucci masterfully balances these conflicting sides of Pierre-Paul’s personality in two key scenes: First, there’s the long conversation with Lesia at a campsite, in which he lays out everything that his lifestyle has cost him. And then there’s the twist, when we learn the real reason he chose this location.

Compared with the “Godfather” films (this decidedly anti-glamorous portrait is practically the antithesis of Coppola’s approach), “The Kingdom” reframes things from the vantage of the Sofia Coppola character. It’s like “The Sopranos,” as seen through Meadow’s eyes. And though we’re all familiar with the lesson that the cost of vengeance is a never-ending circle of violence, Colonna’s retelling lands like a bullet in the head.

Reviewed at Cinema Pantheon, Paris, May 9, 2024. In Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard). Running time: 110 MIN. (Original title: “Le Royaume”)

Production: A Chi-Fou-Mi Prods. production, with the participation of Canal+, Netflix, with the support of Centre National Du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée, de la Collectivité de Corse in partnership with the CNC, in association with Entourage Sofica. Producers: Hugo Selignac, Antoine Lafon.
Crew: Director: Julien Colonna. Screenplay: Julien Colonna, Jeanne Herry. Camera: Antoine Cormier. Editors: Albertine Lastera, Yann Malcor. Music: Audrey Ismael.
With: Ghjuvanna Benedetti, Saveriu Santucci, Anthony Morganti, Andrea Cossu, Frédéric Poggi, Régis Gomez, Eric Ettori, Thomas Bronzini, Pascale Mariani, Attilius Ceccaldi, Ghjuvanni Biancucci, Joseph Pietri, Marie Murcia, Alexandre Joannides, Toussaint Martinetti.

More From Our Brands

The boos have it. trump ruled ineligible for libertarian nomination, dodgers star shohei ohtani scores a socal estate for $7.8 million, birmingham-southern heads to world series as college closes, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, evil bosses tease the hitch in leland’s diabolical plan that ‘never once crossed his mind’, verify it's you, please log in.

Bring Back the Colour

Bethany Dewhurst (June) Patrick Zappacosta (George) Liam Finlayson (The Chief) Hop Dao (Claire)

Mridul Chhibber

In a city divided between the Reds and the Blues, Ved, is consumed by a desire for revenge against the Blues, which he blames for his parents' deaths. Ved plots to take down the leader of the Blues. However, Ved's plans are disrupted when he unexpectedly reunites with his childhood sweetheart, June. June rekindles Ved's old feelings and introduces him to a different perspective. He fits in with neither the reds or the blue, as he is a son of both. Ved must struggle between his quest for vengeance, and a path to move forward.

Subscribe Now! Get features like

Latest News

Entertainment
Real Estate
Election News Live
My First Vote
Maharashtra SSC Result 2024 Live
T20 World Cup 2024
World Cup Schedule 2024
World Cup Most Wickets
World Cup Most Runs
The Interview
World Cup Points Table
Web Stories
Virat Kohli
Mumbai News
Bengaluru News
Daily Digest
Election Schedule 2024

Barbie movie review: Greta Gerwig plays around with a smart satire, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling have too much fun

Barbie is clever, indulgent and fun. greta plays around with the ideas of patriarchy, puberty, feminism and existentialism like they're from her dollhouse..

If there's one thing that the promos of Greta Gerwig 's Barbie movie have made it clear consistently, it's that the narrative is far cleverer than what it lets on. But the film turns out to be too clever — it's a satire that keeps underlining that it's a satire. By the end of the film, you feel like saying — yes, we get it, you're smart.

Margot Robbie as Barbie in Greta Gerwig's film

(Also Read: Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer sells 90000 tickets for opening day, Barbie advance booking stands at 16000 in India )

Having said that, one can't deny the ingenious thought that's gone into the writing of Barbie by Greta and her husband Noah Baumbach. It helps that the writing room constitutes a married couple because at heart, Barbie is really a battle of the sexes. It pits Margot Robbie 's Barbie against Ryan Gosling 's Ken, Barbieworld (where women rule the world and the men are subservient) against the real world, feminism against patriarchy and yin against yang.

Margot plays the stereotypical Barbie who starts to malfunction because of a fault in design at its creator, Mettle, in the real world. So Barbie and Ken travel together to the real world in order to get to the root of the issue. But Barbie discovers the perils of being a woman in the real world whereas Ken gets a crash course in patriarchy.

A thinking Barbie

Barbie goes through quite an existential crisis here. From her body parts malfunctioning like she's hit puberty, from getting introduced to eve-teasing in the real world, getting gaslit by Kens, to reconciling with her identity — Barbie comes a full circle here. Greta uses her as a symbol of capitalism to comment on consumerism, patriarchy and beauty, but also humanises her enough to be her own woman. She underlines the fact that though Barbie made many girls feel inadequate, she herself is conditioned to not know anything better.

Margot Robbie makes for a great Barbie because she allows herself to be used as both a mannequin and a conduit of revolution, as and when required. She plasters a wide grin on her face so impressionably that when she tears up for the first time, one can't help but feel miserable for her “achy, but good feeling.”

Ken with vengeance (Ken-geance?)

Ken is the antithesis of patriarchy in the Barbie world. But Ryan Gosling, upon Ken learning A-Z about patriarchy, plays him so deliciously that it makes for a sound self-deprecating study of masculinity. Watch him admire his flexing muscles while talking or walk like a cowboy from a good ol' Western in the real world. Ryan Gosling gets the brief, makes a whole meal of his part, and doesn't mind using his disarming machismo as a tool to subvert patriarchy.

A whole new pink world

Right from the word go, we're transported to a world where pink is the new normal. From rosy sunsets, pink cactus tops, candy-coated houses to a sea of hot pink energy, Greta barely lets any frame escape sans the colour. Production designer Sarah Greenwood and costume designer Jacqueline Durran painstakingly build a whole new world that makes garish and gaudy look natural and organic.

A satire often too clever for itself

The pink is a curious cover to stage a clever satire. Greta doesn't take potshots only at Mattel, a co-producer and enabler of this adaptation, for some of its regressive business decisions, but in one scene, also aims one at the production house Warner Bros for how it mishandled the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League.

However, at one point, the satire feels self-defeating. After the Barbies lead the Kens on by baiting them to mansplain them, they also instigate them against each other, which ends up reinforcing the stereotype that the reason men fight against each other is because of the women.

Greta is also quite indulgent with the satirising, constantly reiterating how she's remodelling the Barbie myth. The humour, hence, lands only occasionally, even though one silently admires the shots fired with every line. But the tone, a mix of self-awareness and spelling everything out, remains consistent throughout.

In that, Greta Gerwig constructs a satire that's slightly indulgent, but also constantly clever and occasionally fun. She treats the script like it's her Barbie — all dolled up, yet catapulted via imagination to places where it's never gone before.

Greta Gerwig
Ryan Gosling
Margot Robbie
Hollywood Movie

Join Hindustan Times

Create free account and unlock exciting features like.

Terms of use
Privacy policy
Weather Today
HT Newsletters
Subscription
Print Ad Rates
Code of Ethics

IPL Points Table
IPL Orange Cap
IPL Purple Cap
World Cup Live Score
T20 World Cup Schedule
IPL 2024 Auctions
Cricket Teams
Cricket Players
ICC Rankings
Cricket Schedule
T20 World Cup Points Table
Other Cities
Income Tax Calculator
Budget 2024
Petrol Prices
Diesel Prices
Silver Rate
Relationships
Art and Culture
Taylor Swift: A Primer
Telugu Cinema
Tamil Cinema
Board Exams
Exam Results
Competitive Exams
BBA Colleges
Engineering Colleges
Medical Colleges
BCA Colleges
Medical Exams
Engineering Exams
Horoscope 2024
Festive Calendar 2024
Compatibility Calculator
The Economist Articles
Lok Sabha Election Live
Delhi Election 2024 Live
Odisha Election 2024 Live
Lok Sabha States
Lok Sabha Parties
Lok Sabha Candidates
Explainer Video
On The Record
Vikram Chandra Daily Wrap
EPL 2023-24
ISL 2023-24
Asian Games 2023
Public Health
Economic Policy
International Affairs
Climate Change
Gender Equality
future tech
Daily Sudoku
Daily Crossword
Daily Word Jumble
HT Friday Finance
Explore Hindustan Times
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Subscription - Terms of Use

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, taking venice.

Now streaming on:

In 1964, Robert Rauschenberg won the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, an international exhibition of contemporary work. The documentary “Taking Venice” is about the behind-the-scenes maneuvers that resulted in Rauschenberg taking the prize. Director Amei Wallach , an art critic and specialist in fine arts documentaries (she also did “ Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here ” and “Louise Bourgeois: The Mistress and the Tangerine”), portrays Rauschenberg’s victory as an exercise in postwar American power.

A band of sharp-witted American diplomats and art world players figured out how to manifest a win for Rauschenberg, whose work mixed collage, painting, and silkscreen and sometimes utilized ordinary household objects, curios, and junk. This was the Pop-Art era, in which many exhibits, particularly in the US, prompted visitors to ask, “Is this really art?” Rauschenberg was one of the exemplars of the movement, along with Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenberg, and Andy Warhol . Prior to Venice, he had been criticized both at home and abroad as, in his own words, “a clown” or “a novelty." But he was also becoming more popular and had begun to sell work for large sums of money, so it’s not as if he was Philip Glass still driving a taxi cab after “Einstein on the Beach” had premiered at the Metropolitan Opera . There's a mysterious inevitability to the way that certain cultural figures keep rising throughout their careers, and Rauschenberg had that kind of aura. He seemed like somebody already headed for the summit of the mountain who just needed a push to get to the top.

This made him the perfect candidate for special attention from the American government at the Biennale. The US had become a superpower, and President John F. Kennedy (who was prominently featured in Rauschenberg's work and would be assassinated six months before the Biennale) was the most enthusiastic supporter of the arts that the country had ever had in the White House. The State Department under Kennedy wanted to establish that America was making unique, adventurous fine art that was meaningful and beautiful, wasn’t just being dumped in overseas economies like blue jeans and Coca-Cola, and was proof of why people should be on Team America instead of Team Soviet Union.

As a journalist, Wallace got in under the wire, as it were, and interviewed major players in the 1964 Venice Biennale who were in their seventies and eighties and still lucid, along with witnesses. The biggest get is Alice Denney, the former vice-commissioner of the US pavilion and a key player in this art history sideshow. Denney’s husband was deputy director for the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. She suggested a man named Alan R. Solomon to be the US Biennale commissioner along with her. Solomon was a smooth, smart man who, in the words of New Yorker writer Calvin Tomkins, had “a fine hand in his aggression.”

Solomon also had a genius for realizing that any rule that’s not written down isn’t actually a rule and can be bent or broken as long as the gambit is so clever that people feel admiration or envy for not thinking of it first—and as long as the person on whose behalf the effort is being expended seems like a winner anyhow. Rauschenberg did seem like a winner. He was a showman and provocateur and what we would now call a brand, in addition to being an increasingly significant force in gallery art. The combination of Rauschenberg’s game-for-anything confidence and the background operations of Solomon and his allies created a momentum that nobody could halt.

As the New York Times obituary for Solomon recalled : “Insisting on eight sizable one-man shows for artists, [Solomon] soon ran out of space in the cramped American pavilion at the public gardens,” the site of all the official exhibits, where each artist was allowed to display only one painting. “With the agreement of the careless Biennale authorities, Solomon extended his show into a vacant American consulate building, much to the dismay of other nationals who had been denied such privileges.” There were other improvisations as well. In the middle of the night, a construction crew built a makeshift addition to a courtyard-like area in front of the official site with a roof to protect against the elements (today, we’d probably call it a “pop-up exhibit”) where Rauschenberg’s work could be ported over from the auxiliary site, to neutralize gripes about his stuff being shown outside of the official exhibition venue. The strategy was to get people to experience more of Rauschenberg than any other artist at the Biennale.

This is a fascinating story. Counterproductive style choices get in the way of the telling, though. “Taking Venice” wears out its welcome by making the movie seem conventionally exciting, hip, commercial. Motion graphics, re-creations, and digital additions and erasures in historical photos clutter up scenes and montages that would’ve been more impactful if we’d been able to contemplate the images as-is. There’s also a hyped-up score that runs the gamut from Steven Soderbergh heist flick to Michael Bay action thriller. If the point was to convey a cinematic equivalent of Rauschenberg’s pop sensibility, it doesn’t come across for a lot of reasons. This includes the fact that Rauschenberg’s style circa 1964 struck people as "new," but these filmmaking techniques are so overused in modern nonfiction that you're surprised when you don't see them.

“Taking Venice'' also jumps around in time to explore Rauschenberg’s development as an artist and person. There are detours about various subjects, including Rauschenberg’s romantic relationship with Jasper Johns and the “experiments and collaborations” he did at North Carolina’s Black Mountain College with the likes of composer John Cage and choreographer Merce Cunningham (the latter did ultimately show up in Venice, staging a performance the night before the awards deliberation that became the hottest ticket in town). These interludes take the focus off the US government’s efforts to tip the exhibition in Rauschenberg’s favor. It’s a tight movie in terms of running time, and yet so overstuffed and jumbled that it often feels as if it was inclined to turn into a straightforward, critical-biographical documentary about Rauschenberg but stopped itself from doing so.

What’s the takeaway? Denney tells the filmmakers, “We might have won it anyway, but we really engineered it.” Rauschenberg himself later questioned the political agenda that propelled him into the top spot. That his victory was obtained through a government-financed PR machine rather than achieved organically would seem to contradict the US narrative of America's bright and shiny newness trouncing the ossified gatekeepers of Europe in a merit-based contest. The movie skates over that irony instead of digging into it. After the war, the US was an insatiable economic and industrial colossus, described by critics abroad (and by some at home) as a cultural and economic colonizer, even though it thought of itself as a great liberator. Rauschenberg’s win only amplified such complaints. But the Venice operation is presented here as an exercise in Yankee chutzpah that paid off for the US and Rauschenberg: a process movie.

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.

Now playing

Simon Abrams

Dusk for a Hitman

Robert daniels.

Brian Tallerico

Tomris Laffly

Monica Castillo

Film credits.

Taking Venice (2024)

Amei Wallach

Latest blog posts

Cannes 2024 Video #6: Ben Kenigsberg on The Substance, Anora, Emilia Perez, and Napoleon

A Larger Kind of Career: Morgan Spurlock (1970-2024)

Cannes 2024: Armand, The Kingdom, September Says

Cannes 2024 Video #7: Award Winners

IMAGES

Vengeance movie review & film summary (2022)
VENGEANCE
‎Vengeance (2009) directed by Johnnie To • Reviews, film + cast
Vengeance Review (2022 Movie)
Vengeance
Vengeance

VIDEO

Vengeance
🎥 ROLLING VENGEANCE (1987)
Vengeance 2
Bunnyman Vengeance (Movie Review)
Vengeance Movie Review--First Reaction
Vengeance Movie Explained In Hindi @avianimeexplainer9424

COMMENTS

Vengeance movie review & film summary (2022)
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 ...
Vengeance (2022)
Vengeance, the directorial debut from writer and star B.J. Novak ("The Office"), is a darkly comic thriller about Ben Manalowitz, a journalist and podcaster who travels from New York City to West ...
'Vengeance' Review: A Dish Best Served With Frito Pie
Ty is convinced that Abilene's death was the result of a shadowy, nefarious conspiracy, and that her killers need to be dealt with. In his feverish ramblings, Ben hears an opportunity for audio ...
'Vengeance' Review: B.J. Novak's Terrific Directorial Debut
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 ...
Vengeance Review: B.J. Novak's Debut Is a Razor-Sharp ...
Equal parts "Under the Silver Lake" and "This American Life," B.J. Novak's fish-out-of-water story finds big truths in deep Texas. By David Ehrlich. June 14, 2022 5:30 pm. "Vengeance". Patti ...
Vengeance (2022)
Vengeance: Directed by B.J. Novak. With B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Lio Tipton, Ashton Kutcher. 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.
Vengeance
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 ...
Review
'Vengeance' is a startlingly good first film from B.J. Novak The multi-hyphenate produced, wrote, directed and stars in this sharp black comedy Review by Michael O'Sullivan
'Vengeance' review: B.J. Novak looks for America in smart satire
By Katie Walsh. July 28, 2022 7 AM PT. "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 ...
Vengeance
Vengeance is unexpected and, in the best way, weird. In his first film as a writer-director, B.J. Novak takes familiar elements, but puts them together in ways that are original and unexpected. Even when the plot turns go off the deep end, it's impossible not to appreciate Novak's audacity. Read More.
Vengeance Review
When Vengeance opens, it feels like a movie with a lot on its mind. A montage, set to Toby Keith's upbeat, casual " Red Solo Cups ," depicts a rural Texan oil field as the site of a young ...
Vengeance review: a murder mystery that's smart and funny
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 ...
Vengeance review
N ew Yorker, serial dater and seemingly the only man left in Manhattan without his own podcast, Ben (played by BJ Novak, who also wrote and directed) spots an opportunity when he learns of the ...
'Vengeance' Review: B.J. Novak's Directorial Bow Underwhelms
A callow writer attempts to use a young woman's death as a springboard to fame in Vengeance, the filmmaking debut of actor/writer B.J. Novak. Playing the lead role, Novak personifies onscreen ...
What critics think of 'Vengeance,' B.J. Novak's new movie
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 ...
Vengeance
Movie Review. As far as Ben Manalowitz is concerned, he's lived a perfectly acceptable life so far. ... In a sense, that's what director B.J. Novak's Vengeance is all about. Yes, it's couched in a giggling cowpie comedy/drama about podcasts, murder, mystery and cultural contrasts. But dig past the surface, and you'll find a movie that ...
Vengeance (2022 film)
Vengeance is a 2022 American black comedy mystery film written and directed by B. J. Novak in his directorial debut.It stars Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Dove Cameron, Issa Rae and Ashton Kutcher. Jason Blum is a producer under his Blumhouse Productions banner, and Greg Gilreath and Adam Hendricks are producers under their Divide/Conquer banner.. Vengeance premiered at the Tribeca Festival on June 12 ...
'Vengeance' Review: B.J. Novak at His Most Likably Unlikable
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 ...
Vengeance Movie Review
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 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 ...
Vengeance
Vengeance (2009) Vengeance (2009) Vengeance (2009) Vengeance (2009) View more photos Movie Info Synopsis A French chef hires three hit men to help him avenge the murders of his daughter's family.
Vengeance's Ultra-Violent Ending Explained By BJ Novak
Writer, director, and star B.J. Novak unpacks the shockingly violent ending to his new dark comedy thriller, Vengeance, and explains its meaning.Novak is best known as a star of NBC's beloved mockumentary sitcom, The Office, in which he played Dunder Mifflin's reluctant temp, Ryan Howard.Beyond The Office, Novak has also ventured into feature films with roles in Inglourious Basterds, Saving Mr ...
'Vengeance' review: Forget 'The Office.' B.J. Novak's first movie
Movie review. Attention. A major new filmmaking talent has arrived on the scene, and his name is B.J. Novak. People may know him as that guy from "The Office" where he played Ryan Howard.
VENGEANCE
VENGEANCE, the directorial debut from writer and star B.J. Novak ("The Office"), is a darkly comic thriller about Ben Manalowitz, a journalist and podcaster ...
Die Hard with a Vengeance
Die Hard with a Vengeance is a 1995 American action thriller film directed by John McTiernan and written by Jonathan Hensleigh, which is based on the screenplay Simon Says by Hensleigh and the characters created by Roderick Thorp for his 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever. Die Hard with a Vengeance is the third film in the Die Hard film series after Die Hard 2 and was later followed by Live Free ...
24 Films Where Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold
Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. The Kill Bill collection stars Uma Thurman as The Bride, a woman who has been in a coma for four years after a violent attack by her ex-boss Bill and her former ...
'The Kingdom' Review: Daughter of a Corsican Big Shot Tests Her Aim
But as " The Kingdom " unfolds, the attacks keep getting closer, slowly infiltrating the film itself, until finally, they're happening right in front of her face. Corsica, like nearby Sicily ...
Bring Back the Colour (2024)
Ved must struggle between his quest for vengeance, and a path to move forward. ... Film Movie Reviews Bring Back the Colour — 2024. Bring Back the Colour. 2024. 47m. Action/Romance.
Indonesian movie 'Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash' wins best
Indonesian action black comedy Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash has been named Best Film at the 2021 Locarno International Film Festival.. The film, also known as Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus ...
Barbie movie review: Greta Gerwig plays around with a smart satire
Barbie is clever, indulgent and fun. Greta plays around with the ideas of patriarchy, puberty, feminism and existentialism like they're from her dollhouse.
Taking Venice movie review & film summary (2024)
This is a fascinating story. Counterproductive style choices get in the way of the telling, though. "Taking Venice" wears out its welcome by making the movie seem conventionally exciting, hip, commercial. Motion graphics, re-creations, and digital additions and erasures in historical photos clutter up scenes and montages that would've ...

‘Vengeance’ Review: A Dish Best Served With Frito Pie

Explore More in TV and Movies

‘Vengeance’ Review: B.J. Novak’s Very Funny Directorial Debut Is a Razor-Sharp Podcast Noir

Most Popular

More like this

Did you know

User reviews 293

Technical specs

Related news

More to explore

Recently viewed

‘Vengeance’ is a startlingly good first film from B.J. Novak

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

More to Read

Review: ‘The Strangers - Chapter 1’ is a rote rehash that lacks the original film’s creepy suspense

Review: In ‘Femme,’ a secret act of vengeance comes disguised as erotic flirtation

Review: ‘Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World’ is media satire at its most darkly funny

More From the Los Angeles Times

‘Furiosa’ and ‘Garfield’ tussle over worst Memorial Day weekend box office in 29 years

‘Sight’ highlights the journey and faith of an Asian American medical hero who helped the blind see

Sean Baker’s ‘Anora’ wins Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival

The six best movies we saw at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival

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

Dead White Girl

Editors' Recommendations

Vengeance review – a New Yorker turns sleuth in Texas in mildly amusing comedy-mystery

Comments (…)

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

site categories

John DeFore

Related Stories

Full credits

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Notice: All forms on this website are temporarily down for maintenance. You will not be able to complete a form to request information or a resource. We apologize for any inconvenience and will reactivate the forms as soon as possible.

Content Caution

In Theaters

Home Release Date

Distributor

Movie Review

Positive Elements

Spiritual Elements

Sexual Content

Violent Content

Crude or Profane Language

Drug and Alcohol Content

Other Negative Elements

Latest Reviews

The Garfield Movie

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

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

K. Austin Collins

Editor’s picks

Hollywood Crew Members Call for Safety on Set After Production-Related Deaths

'Survivor' Superfan Sia Is Done Awarding Cash Prizes to Her Favorite Contestants

'The Beach Boys' Doc Is One Endless Summer — and Concludes the Group's Story Far Too Soon

Alec Baldwin Loses Bid to Dismiss ‘Rust’ Involuntary Manslaughter Charge

Trump Lawyers Send Cease-and-Desist Letter to 'The Apprentice' Producers to Block Sale

Most Popular

Verify it's you

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Movies / TV

Critics Reviews

More Like This

Screen Rant

Every Upcoming Mad Max Movie In Development

‘Vengeance’ review: Forget ‘The Office.’ B.J. Novak’s first movie proves his true talent lies in directing

Most Read Entertainment Stories

24 Films Where Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold

Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Revenant

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Godfather

Django Unchained

Léon: The Professional

V for Vendetta

Lady Vengeance