Review: 'Vengeance,' B.J. Novak's directing debut, is a smart culture-clash drama but falls apart as a murder mystery
In the darkly comic thriller “Vengeance,” B.J. Novak — who also wrote and directed the film — plays a writer out to “find America” by reporting on and narrating a true-crime podcast deep in the heart of Texas.
And if you’ve ever listened to a true-crime podcast, you’re going to appreciate how Novak’s directing debut comes out: Often thrilling, occasionally insightful, and with an ending that can’t neatly wrap what has led up to it.
Novak plays Ben Manalowitz, a Brooklyn-based writer who tells his friend, Eloise (Issa Rae), that he wants to tell a story that’s meaningful, that says something about America in the 21st century. “America isn’t divided by space; it’s divided by time,” Ben declares, to which Eloise, a radio producer, responds, “That’s a theory. It’s not a story.”
Then Ben gets a call from someone he doesn’t know, Ty Shaw (Boyd Holbrook), with news that Ty’s sister, Abilene (Lio Tipton), has died. Ben used to hook up with Abilene a time or two when she lived in New York, but, apparently, her family thinks their relationship was more serious. So Ty insists that Ben fly to Texas — not Austin or Dallas or Houston, but “real” Texas — for her funeral.
Ben lands in the Lone Star State, and Ty is there to drive him to meet the rest of the Shaw family. Riding shotgun in Ty’s truck (which has a shotgun and a rifle in the gun rack behind Ben’s head), Ben hears Ty’s theory that Abilene didn’t die of an accidental drug overdose, as then not-too-bright local law enforcement has said, but was killed. And Ty wants to enlist Ben in finding her killer and avenging her death.
Ben decides this is the story he wants to tell, and immediately calls Eloise to pitch it. She’s on board, and ships him a pro-grade recorder to capture every voice.
Soon, Ben is meeting the rest of the Shaw family: Abilene’s mom, Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron, from “Succession”); Abilene’s fame-hungry sisters, Paris (Isabella Amara) and K.C. (Dove Cameron), and her little brother, nicknamed El Stupido (Eli Bickel); and Abilene’s salty grandma, Carole (Louanne Stephens, from “Longmire”). They all express astonishment that Abilene died of a drug overdose, with each of them saying with suspicious regularity that “she didn’t take so much as an Advil.”
Ben tries to plumb the depths of Texas culture, such as going to the rodeo, pouring chili in a bag of Frito’s, and grabbing dinner at the Shaw family’s favorite place, Whataburger. He also tries to investigate the mystery of Abilene’s death, away from a well-known weekend party site in the scrub lands, in an oil field with no cellphone service in an area conveniently split among four jurisdictions. And Ben seeks clues to the type of person Abilene, whom he barely knew, was — a would-be musician who confided in a suave record producer, Quentin Sellers (Ashton Kutcher), and befriended the town drug lord, Sancholo (Zach Villa).
Novak mines a fair amount of humor from the culture clash between Ben’s urban vibe and the Texas setting — though he’s careful not to be too condescending to the Texas side, deriding the Brooklyn pomposity with equally acerbic barbs. He also captures the glossy sterility of Eloise’s public-radio offices, where the gritty humanity of Abilene’s death is sanded down to just another story about America. (Bonus points for casting “Fresh Air” host and radio icon Terry Gross as the voice of Eloise’s boss, seemingly dialing in from the radio equivalent of Mount Olympus.)
Unfortunately, Novak can’t stick the landing. All the set-up and sharp observational details he plants throughout “Vengeance” pay off when Ben and the Shaw family finally get real with each other about what each thinks about the other’s geographically centered worldviews. But then there’s the mystery-thriller part of the story, which fizzles when it should explode, leaving audiences wanting to seek their own vengeance for being led down a path to nowhere.
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‘Vengeance’
★★★
Opens Friday, July 29, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language and brief violence. Running time: 107 minutes.