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"Vengeance" sounds like the title of an action thriller. There have been films with that name before. But although vengeance is discussed in "Vengeance"—the first feature from writer/director/star B.J. Novak, co-star and co-writer of the American version of "The Office"—it has a lot more on its mind. Too much, probably. 

The story begins in earnest when New Yorker writer and aspiring public intellectual Ben Manalowitz (Novak) gets a call at his Manhattan apartment late one night from Ty Shaw ( Boyd Holbrook ), who lives in one of the flattest backwaters in West Texas, a small town five hours' drive from Abilene, which is two hours and forty minutes from Dallas. Ty is calling to tell Ben that his sister, Ben’s girlfriend—who is oddly also named Abilene, Abby for short—has died. 

Ben doesn't have a girlfriend named Abby. He's a player who hooks up with many women. But a quick check of his phone confirms that he did indeed have sex with an aspiring singer named Abby ( Lio Tipton ) a few times and then forgot about her. Somehow he ends up letting himself be talked into traveling to Abby's hometown, attending her funeral, and commiserating with her grieving family, which also includes her younger sisters Paris ( Isabella Amara ) and Kansas City ( Dove Cameron ), her kid brother El Stupido (Elli Abrams Beckel), and her mother Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron). Then Ty tells Ben that Abby was murdered, probably by a Mexican drug dealer named Sancholo ( Zach Villa ), and asks if he'll help the family seek, well, you know.

Ben is a narcissist who seems to view every relationship and experience as a way of raising his status as a writer and quasi-celebrity, so it seems unbelievable at first that he'd travel to Texas to attend the funeral of a woman he didn't really know. But the notion begins to seem more plausible once he starts talking to the family and slotting them into his prefabricated East Coast media-industrial-complex notions of "red state" and "blue state" people, and spinning his theories about temporal dislocation. Modern technology, he says, allows every person to exist in every moment except the present if they so choose. The desire for vengeance, we are told, is exclusively a backward-looking urge.

Intrigued by the possibility of writing the equivalent of a great American novel in the form of a podcast (he even name-checks Truman Capote's In Cold Blood ) Ben decides to stick around to gather material for an audio series, which will be created under the supervision of his friend Eloise, a New York-based podcast editor for a National Public Radio-like organization. (As Eloise, Issa Rae works wonders with a thinly written role.)

If Ben’s creative vision sounds like the kind of navel-gazing blather that you'd hear on a true crime podcast in which an actual person's murder becomes a springboard for brunchy rumination on law and truth and the nature of yadda yadda  by a group of Ivy League college graduates based in Brooklyn, well, Ben is aware that he's sliding towards that cliché—and so is Eloise, who early on makes a joke to the effect that Ben is the only white man in America without a podcast. And yet, true to media form, they embrace the templates, tropes, and clichés anyway. 

Unfortunately, so does the movie. Like "The Daily Show" and its many imitators—and like Jon Stewart's recent film " Irresistible "—this is a movie that chastises its protagonist and the "red state" people he engages with for failing to look beyond the clichés they're fed by their own self-enclosed media loops, while at the same time dining out on them. On one side of the great divide is a nation of "coastal elites" (driven by Harvard-educated Jewish people like Ben) who name-drop cultural tidbits that they learned in college and never revisited; sneer at monogamy, and think everything between the coasts that's not a Top Ten city is a barbaric wasteland. The inhabitants of said wasteland are people whose favorite restaurant is Whataburger and have several guns in the house for every person (including the kids) and use them to settle their differences rather than calling 911. 

Intriguingly, though, even as "Vengeance" checks box after box on the op-ed chart of American shorthand, it also presents a number of characters with idiosyncrasies and layers that we've never seen in a movie before. Ben himself is quite a piece of work, and it's to Novak's credit that we eventually dig past Ben's buzzwords and NPR-ready voice and see the character's self-loathing (and, it would appear, the filmmaker's) at realizing that he's a prisoner of the same limited thinking he decries. (Ben often plays more like the protagonist of a French comedy than an American one—or like the characters played by Canadian satirist Ken Finkleman in "The Newsroom" and "More Tears.") There's little discussion of racial grievance as a motivation for politics in the film, and nobody mentions Trump, Greg Abbott, or the transformation of Texas into an authoritarian nation-state. 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 seem one-note during their introductions but quickly assert their spiky individualism. Smith-Cameron seems underutilized at first, but becomes the emotional anchor of Ben's story, and her final scene is powerful. There are several terrific scenes involving Abby's onetime record producer Quinten Sellers, kind of a Phil Spector of West Texas who lives and works in a combination home, studio, and cult compound, and regales his talent and hangers-on with monologues about time, space, individuality, art, drugs, and hedonism that Marlon Brando or Dennis Hopper might have delivered in a 1970s American art film. Sellers is played by  Ashton Kutcher in what might be a career-best performance. With his polite but eerie intensity, ten-gallon white cowboy hat, and lanky frame, it's as if Sam Shepard had come back to play Col. Walter Kurtz.

Novak is a thoughtful writer with a lot of things to say about the United States of America in the year 2022. The problem is that he seems determined to say all of them in one feature film. The result is a jumbled, fitfully amusing, occasionally fascinating effort, but one that shows promise even when it's stumbling over its ambition and falling prey to some of the same stereotypes about "red" and "blue" (or reactionary and progressive) America that it keeps intimating that Americans need to get beyond. The first 15 minutes are borderline awful, but the movie gets better and more surprising as it goes, and the final act is impressive in its determination not to give the audience what it wants. Novak is famous enough that he could've cobbled together an onanistic two hours of nothing and still gotten into South by Southwest with it, but he decided to try to make a real movie. 

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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.

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Vengeance (2022)

Rated R for language and brief violence.

B.J. Novak as Ben Manalowitz

Boyd Holbrook as Ty Shaw

J. Smith-Cameron

Dove Cameron as Kansas City

Ashton Kutcher

Isabella Amara as Paris

Cinematographer

• Lyn Moncrief
• Plummy Tucker
• Hilda Rasula
• Finneas O'Connell

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‘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.

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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.

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‘Vengeance’ Review: B.J. Novak’s Terrific Directorial Debut Is a West Texas Murder Mystery That’s Like Preston Sturges Meets Film Noir Meets NPR

Novak introduces redneck stereotypes only to detonate them in a one-of-a-kind movie that's so wide awake and sharp-edged it marks the arrival of a potentially major filmmaker.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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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’s just grounded enough in the real world to carry you along. It’s at once an ominous heartland murder mystery; a culture-clash comedy that finds Ben Manalowitz (played by Novak), an acerbic New Yorker writer and podcaster, descending into the bleak depths of West Texas; and a meditation on blue state/red state values that gradually evolves into something larger — a cosmic riff on how the two sides of America are working, nearly in tandem, to tear the country apart.

Novak, an actor best known for his role on “The Office” (where he also served as a writer, executive producer, and director), brings off what could have been a rickety conceit as if he were holding the audience in the palm of his hand. “Vengeance,” which he wrote and directed (it’s his first feature), has been made with such confidence and verve, and it’s held together by a vision — of loss, ambition, addiction, conspiracy theory, and how we’re all victims of the contemporary image culture — that is so wide awake and sharp-edged, it marks the arrival of a potentially major filmmaker.

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After a prelude set on a dark-as-midnight Texas oil field, with murky hints of foul play, the film kicks off with Ben and his buddy, played by John Mayer, scoping out women at Soho House, exchanging tips on how to play the hookup game. In the space of four minutes, the attitudes they express about serial dating and “commitment” — a concept as foreign to them as some ritual from a distant galaxy — are put forth with a compact misanthropic assurance that makes us think we’re seeing some 21st-century version of “Swingers.” (I have no doubt that Novak could make that movie, and that it might be as good as “Swingers.”) The ritual phrase of agreement they keep saying is “a hundred percent,” as if they were sure of it all. “Vengeance,” among other things, is a comic poke at the fake armor of cosmopolitan male certainty.

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At the party, Ben makes a pitch to a podcast producer, Eloise, played with twinkling cynicism by Issa Rae, and we hear the intricate yet slightly annoying way his mind works. Ben’s theory that what’s actually fragmenting our lives is our newly controlled sense of time has much to be said for it. Yet we also can’t help but hear how in love he is with the sound of his own mind. He’s a brainiac narcissist, too full of theories, and Novak gives him a crackling surface and a saturnine depth. The actor, with his large eyes, whip-crack delivery, and glare of geek suspicion, would be well cast as Lou Reed. Yet in “Vengeance,” he makes Ben a thumbnail portrait of the new generation of New York writer careerists whose idealism is dunked in opportunism.

Ben has a date (when the woman arrives at his apartment, he greets her with a friendly “How’s book world?,” not realizing that she’s not the hookup from publishing). In the middle of the night, after they’re in bed, he’s awakened by a call from a scary-sounding Southern stranger, who tells Ben that his girlfriend is dead. This would be news to Ben, since the concept of a “girlfriend” is also from that distant galaxy. But he did know the young woman in question (they hooked up a few times), and before long he finds himself speaking at the funeral of Abilene Shaw (Lio Tipton), right next to a photo of her with a guitar (“She loved music. I know that”), in rural Texas.

Why would he even be there? You have to roll with that one (though it’s actually explained down the line). Ben meets Abby’s family members — her mother, granny, and two sisters, her little tyke of a brother, and her older brother, Ty (Boyd Holbrook), a wild-boy yokel who has decided that Abby was murdered and wants Ben to help him solve the crime. He wants his vengeance. All this seems, for a scene or two, like a very movie-ish setup. Ben is the kind of New Yorker for whom Texas is not a real place; to him, Texas is the Austin of “South-by.” And as we glimpse the family pickup truck, with its twin rifles mounted on the back window, we wonder if the movie is going to be some glib Manhattan-swell-among-the-gun-nuts, geek-out-of-water comedy.

It quickly transcends that. Novak introduces clichés and stereotypes only to detonate them — or, better yet, fill them in in ways that show us how the stereotypes are real and not real. Abby’s family members are a bunch of rednecks, but that doesn’t mean they’re dumb, or unworldly, or not plugged into the currents of urban technology. They’re characters who keep surprising us. Ben, sensing an opportunity, decides to stay and make a podcast out of Abby’s death, keeping his digital phone recorder on during every conversation. It will be like “In Cold Blood” for the age of progressive radio, with Ben as the murder investigator and reporter. “I will find this person,” he tells the family, “or this generalized societal force. And I will define it.” He titles the podcast “The Dead White Girl” (Eliose, back in New York, is editing and advising), and “Vengeance” turns into the story of an East Coast creative telling a tale of backwoods locals even as his own blindness becomes central to their story.

The film’s perceptions arrive as jokes, and vice versa, whether it’s Ben trying (and failing) to get Ty and the others to define why they love the WhatABurger fast-food chain beyond the fact that it’s always right there. Or Ben being hilariously outed at a rodeo for the Northern wimp he is. Or Abby’s sister Paris (Isabella Amara) accusing Ben of cultural appropriation, to which he responds that her use of the term “cultural appropriation” is an act of cultural appropriation (they’re both right). Or a local music producer named Quentin Sellers, played with dashingly sinister aplomb by Ashton Kutcher in a white cowboy suit, explaining how and why conspiracy mania took over the heartland. Was Abby killed, or did she die of an opioid overdose? That’s the mystery, and it’s resolved in a way that puts a haunting cast of mythology over the spiritual despair of Middle America.

In a good way, “Vengeance” makes up its own rules. It’s a one-of-a-kind movie, like a Preston Sturges comedy fused with the free-floating what’s-it-all-mean? dread of “Under the Silver Lake.” But this movie, unlike that one, has a pretty good idea of what it all means. It’s voiced by the film’s most brilliant and disturbing character, who explains, in a way that may blow your head open a little bit, why the very way our culture now dissects and explains everything has had the paradoxical effect of robbing anything and everything of meaning. It’s the death of communication not just by social media but by all media, and in “Vengeance” the way it plays out in the heartland, where indifference can be a form of hate, makes a statement that reverberates. In “Vengeance,” B.J. Novak proves a born storyteller with the rare gift of using a film to say something that intoxicates us.

Reviewed at Tribeca Festival, June 12, 2022. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 107 MIN.

• Production: A Focus Features release of a Blumhouse production, in association with Divide/Conquer. Producers: Jason Blume, Adam Hendricks, Greg Gilreath. Executive producers: B.J. Novak, Leigh Kilton-Smith.
• Crew: Director, writer: B.J. Novak. Camera: Lyn Moncrief. Editors: Andy Canny, Hilda Rasula, Plummy Tucker.
• With: B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher, J. Smith-Cameron, Lio Tipton, Dove Cameron, Isabella Amara, Eli Abrams Bickel, Louanne Stephens, Zach Villa, Clint Obenchain.

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

David ehrlich.

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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.

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B.J. Novak's writing-directing-starring hat trick, Vengeance , is a thoughtful and humorous film debut packed with the comedian's caustic social commentary; however, much like its main character, the narrative struggles to communicate anything truly memorable about life, death, or the power of storytelling. Novak has a lot to say in Vengeance,  tackling everything from hook-up culture, predatory opportunism, and increasing tensions between east coast elitism and heartland conservatism. While the film's central premise (finding the "story" in a murder investigation podcast) provides an excuse for the filmmaker to meander from one idea (and crazy character) to the next, by the end Novak is straining to weave everything together - resulting in some very heavy-handed exchanges that are at-odds with the movie's otherwise deft methods.

In Vengeance , Novak plays New Yorker  columnist Ben Manalowitz, an aimless NYC bro who spends his days dreaming up podcast ideas and his evenings bedding one-night stands that he callously anonymizes in his cell phone contacts: i.e. "Brunette Random House Party." Though, when Ben receives a call from Ty Shaw (Boyd Holbrook) informing him that Ben's girlfriend Abilene (aka "Abby Texas" aka one of Ben's hookups, definitely not his girlfriend) recently passed away while visiting her West Texas hometown, the aspiring storyteller decides to travel south to attend Abilene's funeral - only to be drawn into Ty's belief that Abby's death was not an accident and that, instead, she's a murder victim. Seeing Ty as the perfect vehicle through which to tell a story about American denial as well as the country's increasing reliance on conspiracy theory to avoid reality, Ben elects to stay in Texas and begin work on a podcast that would use this "Dead White Girl" and her family as a means to find his own voice.

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Novak is no stranger to social commentary, thanks to writer and producer credits on  The Office , and Vengeance is loaded with clever ideas, insightful viewpoints, and well-timed laughs. It's an entertaining tale that successfully hews to and then subverts true-crime podcast tropes - providing a fun, and surprisingly accurate, reflection on what makes murder stories so enticing. Abilene's fate, and circumstances that led the Shaw family to believe Ben was Abby's boyfriend, strike a smart balance and provide a fun (but fittingly down-to-earth) twist on expectation that'd be right at home in an actual true-crime investigation.

The film shines when Novak is seated with the Shaw family and living in the aftermath of their grief; yet, as Ben ventures out and makes contact with other individuals (and suspects) that were in Abilene's orbit, Vengeance begins to lose sight of nuanced family drama in favor of quirky caricatures, dense monologues, and predictable conflicts that, with one exception, follow traditional plot setup and payoff templates. As Ben, Novak provides a well-realized performance (not to mention skillful direction). The actor doesn't exactly disappear into the role - as Ben is the kind of uptight, arrogant, and selfish individual that Novak has become famous for playing. Nevertheless, Ben is a solid pilot for the story and Novak commits to the interactions that he's scripted. He meets the moment - albeit if for no other reason than to let his co-stars to shine.

Fortunately, Novak is surrounded by a capable ensemble that viewers will absolutely enjoy. The writer-director takes care to avoid painting the Shaw family (and Texas in general) with mean-spirited stereotypes and, instead, endeavors to unpack the ironies of Lone Star State life with one-part commentary, one-part reverence. The approach provides ample room for the Shaw cast, in particular, to flourish. One scene that perfectly encapsulates this balance sees Abilene's younger sisters Kansas City (Dove Cameron) and Paris (Isabella Amara) complaining about their hometown - only for the girls to turn on Ben when he makes the mistake of joining in.

Boyd Holbrook absolutely thrives as Ty, injecting the character with charm and naivety that make for an electric juxtaposition to Ben. Ty is the motor of the film, pulling Ben down one rabbit hole after another - but his shenanigans never wear out their welcome and Holbrook crafts a surprisingly sincere turn that, in other hands, might have been more comedy and story mechanics than a well-realized, albeit ridiculous, human being. Similarly, J. Smith-Cameron ( Succession ) shines as Abilene's mother, Sharon, and is responsible for a number of delicate scenes (of emotion, grief, and rage) that go a long way in unpacking what Novak is actually trying to say in  Vengeance .

Rounding out the supporting cast is Issa Rae, playing Ben's friend and podcast producer, who is charged as in-film barometer - saying out loud what viewers might be thinking in an effort to ensure the audience understands how they should feel about Ben's actions at any given time - as well as setting the stage for the writer-turned-true-crime podcaster to begin disobeying orders and jeopardizing their project.

Ashton Kutcher is on the delivering side of a couple lengthy scenes of exposition - in which his character, local music producer Quinten Sellers, and Ben discuss the nature of everything from storytelling, to small town life, to the dangers of unfulfilled creative impulse. Novak asks a lot of Kutcher and the former That 70's Show  star makes it work but it's dense stuff - and, frankly, not everything works. Lastly, it's worth noting that the most affecting scenes in the movie occur between Ben and Abilene's young brother, nicknamed El Stupido (and played by Elli Abrams) - who carries a side-story that powers one of Vengeance's most cohesive, haunting, and rewarding throughlines.

Vengeance is about what moviegoers likely expect: it's well-written and fun - like just about everything Novak has a hand in crafting. Moment-to-moment scenes come together for an overall satisfying film, one that is sure to play a lot of the right notes for true-crime podcast-obsessed moviegoers. That said, select scenes and characters in the  Vengeance  lean hard on outright explanation and pontification - making it hard to trust Novak is in complete control of his narrative from beginning to end. Instead, the movie asks a lot of questions and juggles a lot of ideas, most of them good, but key pieces don't stick their landing - undermining the overall impact of what Novak, clearly, intends to say. A missed opportunity, given that "finding your voice" is one idea that  Vengeance  spends a lot of time exploring.

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Vengeance  releases July 29th and runs 107 minutes. The film is rated-R for language and brief violence.

Vengeance is a comedy mystery movie directed and written by The Office's B.J. Novak. The film centers on Ben Manalowitz (Novak), a New York-based writer who travels South to investigate the murder of a woman he once hooked up with. Alongside B.J. Novak stars Boyd Holbrook, Lio Tipton, and Ashton Kutcher.

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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.

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.

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Vengeance Review

B.j. novak takes on modern america and loses..

You can feel the gears trying desperately to turn, despite being firmly locked in place, in B.J. Novak’s exceptionally plain directorial debut. Vengeance follows pretentious New Yorker columnist Ben Manalowitz (Novak) on a reluctant journey to the deep south to solve (and podcast about) a young girl’s murder, but it fails to grasp at meaning despite having its characters verbalize dozens of different themes about the modern American divide. Granted, the result of this meandering is a stunningly — and in some ways, commendably — nihilistic conclusion, rendered with an intimacy the rest of the movie lacks. However, it’s too last-minute a turn, for a story that says nothing en route to suddenly deciding it had a profound mission statement all along.

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 girl’s disappearance while the opening credits play. The stark tonal disconnect sets up both a wry comedic tone, and a sense of broad allegory — the red solo cup is, after all, a quintessential symbol of American culture across all lines of experience, something recognized the world over thanks to its prevalence in Hollywood — but the buck stops there.

When the casually womanizing Manalowitz gets a phone call about the death of a girl he used to sleep with — amateur musician Abilene (Lio Tipton), whose family believes they were still together, and deeply in love — he flies out to West Texas to attend her funeral, albeit with ulterior motives. Her brother Ty (Boyd Holbrook) doesn’t buy the official story that she overdosed. He believes she was murdered and he has a culprit in mind, so he seeks out retribution and drafts Manalowitz into his service. Manalowitz, in the guise of catching a phantom killer, seizes the opportunity to craft an audio narrative about the woes of heartland America, including the opioid crisis that seemingly killed Abilene, and the conspiratorial thinking that makes Ty believe otherwise.

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It’s a filmic introspection of a clueless, obnoxious liberal, but it often feels like Manalowitz is its author rather than its target, despite the numerous times he underestimates Abilene’s family and their intelligence. It has exactly one joke up its sleeve — city man think country person dumb, but country person really smart! — but it never uses this repetition to bring Manalowitz (or the narrative) closer to a genuine understanding of his podcast subjects. Sometimes, it’s a fish out of water story, à la Borat. Other times, it skirts close to making Manalowitz reflect on his unkindness. But as a whole, it has little to no narrative drive, whether in the unfurling of its plot (i.e. Manalowitz pulling on various threads and uncovering details the police might have overlooked) or in its character saga, of a man who intrudes on a grieving family and finds unexpected acceptance.

The key problem here is that, despite the film’s insistence that Manalowitz and his upper-crust Manhattanite ilk fail to recognize the humanity of people across America’s political spectrum, Vengeance offers them little of the same. Ty, his mother (J. Smith Cameron), his grandmother (Louanne Stephens), his younger brother (Elli Abrams Bickel), and his sisters (Dove Cameron and Isabella Amara), are all afforded snappy comebacks to the snooty journalist and his presumptions, but what they aren’t afforded is a sense of perspective and experience. Apart from Granny Shaw — a role Stephens inhabits with a mischievous grace, as if someone had breathed real life into Meemaw from Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy — the family rarely behaves as if they’ve lived life, or experienced loss. So, there’s never a lasting sense that Manalowitz is the interloping emotional vampire the film frames him to be, as he forwards their recorded conversations to his podcast producer, Eloise (Issa Rae).

This lack of discernible outlook also extends to the film’s core premise: despite its political allusions, Vengeance has no actual politics of which to speak, or any characters beyond Manalowitz with even a hint of political coding in the narrative (even the basic cultural aesthetics generally associated with American politics are too complex for the film to grasp). It’s a story that, apart from certain specificities — like the prevalence of delectable Texan fast food chain Whataburger — could take place practically anywhere else, so even the sheltered white-rich-liberal obliviousness on display has nothing off which to really bounce.

Furthermore, Manalowitz’s chosen medium — the true crime and/or political podcast — is similarly an afterthought, despite the presence of a key supporting character as a parallel to him: Quinten Sellers (Ashton Kutcher), a music producer who helped Abilene record a couple of tracks. Sellers is the closest thing the movie has to a real conception of depth, as someone with a purposeful, existential outlook on sound and voices, but with a subdued bitterness towards everything else. Kutcher finds intriguing balance in this conundrum, but Vengeance never seems to recognize the dots it could potentially connect, as a story of people who capture lives and impressions through acoustics, and as a tryst between someone who knew Abilene well, and cared for her soulful music, and someone using her death to his advantage.

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To expect Vengeance to use sound to tell its story in a meaningful way (beyond a few fleeting glimpses at Manalowitz’s podcast) is a tall order, given that even its use of images rarely seems to extend beyond “merely functional.” While a single scene of Manalowitz and the Shaws hanging out at Whataburger has an almost documentarian approach — an intrusive verité lens peeking in on unexpected joy — little else in the film’s visual construction helps tell its story, whether through individual brush strokes focused on character, or by crafting an overarching fabric. It has no sense of time or place, despite geography and the contemporary breakdown of truth and trust in America being central to its premise. Even in its less serious moments, it has little care for rhythm, beyond holding far too long on Novak’s reaction shots, in which he expresses little beyond a two-dimensional indignation. Novak may hold his character’s feet to the fire, but he can’t resist warping the story around his own presence.

Vengeance often resembles Jon Stewart’s pompous, deeply misguided political comedy Irresistible in its sheer nothing-ness, despite superficial gestures towards insight and answers. The story does eventually gesture towards Manalowitz’s hollowness, when it finally reveals the dark heart lingering beneath its surface — a nihilism that might have genuinely rocked an audience to its core in a better movie — but it ends up being a mere flourish in the grand scheme of things, a last-minute attempt to embody some sense of drama or intensity stemming from the world around the characters. Sadly, it ends up being too little, too late.

Despite its chilling conclusion, B.J. Novak’s directorial debut Vengeance limps its way through half-formed statements about America’s political divide. The wry tale of a podcaster telling a dead girl’s story in small-town Texas, it has little to say about its characters, and even less to say about the world they inhabit, which Novak captures with extreme plainness.

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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

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“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.

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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.

“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

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Vengeance (2022): Movie Review & Ending Explained

Vengeance (2022) movie review:.

Many films of late have obsessively latched on to the idea of detachment. Although the namesake film starring Adrien Brody remains the quintessential thinkpiece, several efforts have reshaped the feeling in a changing world. As we go digital in every walk of life, the feeling becomes more enhanced. It is felt with a powerful swoop of loneliness and grief. Social media is one of the most favored thematic vehicles that filmmakers are using now. Isolating characters through the constant need to match up to other people’s perceptions of them is the preferred route. What Vengeance does so well and differently is defy those expectations. The protagonist Ben comes afront with his own emptiness and shallow existence through an exercise of creating an alternate self – the one that feels at peace going along with the world’s pace. Vengeance isn’t solely a character study: it is the canvas of an entire nation.

BJ Novak (our least favorite character from our favorite ‘The Office’) writes, directs, and stars as Ben. Other notable members of the cast include Issa Rae, Jean-Smith Cameron (Gerry from ‘Succession’), and Ashton Kutcher. Vengeance is conceived not just as a plain investigative effort on the part of an aspiring writer looking for “the story” to springboard him into the limelight but also as a journey of self-discovery through the mirror of regrets. Disparate elements of story are brought together in well-fleshed-out themes about individuality, the hollow dating and hookup culture, and the lost value of human connection. At the same time, Novak ensures the dialogue remains light and the depths of his commentary about society hits you hard with a softened touch. He makes you woefully aware of the emerging distance between the world (as he puts it so aptly, “divided by time”); the lack of compassion and real feelings.

This sense of misplaced priorities and human exhibitions sails through in a painful buildup with an epiphanous conclusion. Vengeance’s first half leaves you reeling with its effects. The “big city vs. small town” divide suffers from familiar markings, although the inclusion of the Shaw family makes the difference. BJ Novak doesn’t give an earnest performance in the purest sense of the word – the way in which it has been etched into cinematic acting. But in the scheme of things in the way he is supposed to play the part he is earnest; honest in the way he does not care. So, Vengeance takes the shape of a pseudo-mockumentary of genre themes and narratives, where the killer is chased down. It’s already darkly intense and bleak universe doesn’t need any more “ghosts”. Vengeance defies those tropes and presents something very refreshing. It is a “vengeance story” without emotion.

Before connecting with the world, we must try to reconnect with ourselves. Seeing others through the prism of our thoughts and reflections is futile in the long run, Eventually, the truth will catch up with you. Another likable thing about the film was Novak’s clever storytelling. Through Issa Rae’s Eloise, Vengeance lays out its work’s intricacies. You are kind of seeing a meta deconstruction of what the story and characters really mean. And all Ben learns is how empty he is. He has himself fallen into a narrative he has weaved around the record/memory of a girl he never knew. It is mildly revolting and strongly hypocritical but immensely beneficial to the narrative’s artistic appeal.

There is a slight mishap in terms of focus that leaves lukewarm feelings about the final outcome. Novak isn’t too sure of how to find his voice as an artist through Kutcher’s Sellers. He compensates for critical and essential exposition with delirious, unfulfilled monologues about abstract notions somehow creating conflicts in the real world. He is supposed to be the antagonist but comes across as very unclear. Thus, he isn’t too useful for Novak in his efforts to make an excellent film. Vengeance seems too concerned with the broad strokes at times, leading to distracted execution. The third act, hence, feels really weak and the overall structure lob sided. Vengeance has fleeting similarities to The Guest (2014) and The Lives of Others (2006). Recontextualizing the latter with modern sensibilities in a way is probably a good way to describe the film. Our review of it does not end here. Read on to the next segments that explain the ending and other burning questions about the plot.

Why is Ben revered by Abilene’s family?

As you might have noticed, Ben was confused when Ty mentioned Abilene’s name on the phone. Off it, he admitted to having hooked up with her without creating an emotional connection. Abilene apparently did create one and when Ben went to her room, he saw pictures of him on her walls. Later, when Ben is able to guess her phone’s passcode, he sees messages that she exchanged with someone who was fed in her phone as “Ben”. Those messages entail the real answer to this question. She was keeping up appearances and wasn’t actually smitten with Ben. She even confessed in the messages to using his name to chat and talk with someone else.

Abilene saw Ben in the same way he did her – a random hookup in a strange city. Their relationship was nothing more. But Abilene’s family didn’t know this and were fooled by her clever attempts to hide Quentin’s identity. They thought Abilene was madly in love with Ben because of the pictures and how she talked about him. Ben was such a huge figure in her life that not only did Ty call him to attend the funeral, he even asks him to join the quest for vengeance.

Why does Ben agree to go when he knows the truth about the relationship?

As it is revealed early in the movie, Ben is a writer for the New Yorker. His journalism career hasn’t taken off yet and as is the norm, he will have to break a big story to be successful. At first, he does not think about the story and goes just because he can not say no to a grieving Ty on the phone. Maybe, deep down, he is a good person. Or he is another one of the humanoids on earth keeping up appearance. Anyway, he takes the flight out to Texas and interacts with Ty. The brother springs the revenge idea on him out of nowhere and Ben, instead of reacting, responds in a thinking manner.

It is only then that the idea of a story hits him. Ben did not want to exploit the narrative and make a story out of the tragic incident but he felt it could be the big break that launches him. Eloise encourages him to explore the idea he pitched to hr earlier at the party of creating a podcast about the idea of America and how it is divided by time. Ben concurred and felt that it would tie up really well with his other ideas for a podcast.

What was Quentin Sellers’ criminal conspiracy?

Sellers (Ashton Kutcher) came across as a very genuine, thoughtful, and sage individual when we first met him. He was also the only “friend” that had Ben’s back in the town. Ben was impressed by his recording studio and ideas about individuality and the optimism he had about Texas. As the climax reveals, it was all a show. Or maybe not a show but it was far from the moral truth that we like to believe in. Remember how Ben is moved from one authority to the other in a sequence? All the law enforcement agencies say to him that the spot where Abilene was found  – the oil pumps – is a spot where the jurisdiction of all the four agencies overlaps. That is why they have never been able to investigate any murders or deaths that have happened in the region.

When Ben went to the Sherrif’s office, he told Ben that a purple drug was being brought into the town from the highway that they had been tracking. Ben then makes the connection that since the region also includes a passageway from the highway, it would be easier for someone to smuggle them in and still go unnoticed. This was Sellers’ conspiracy. He used to smuggle in the drugs and then allow the youngsters to use his product and even overdose due to it. But because of the overlapping jurisdiction, he was never caught.

How is the idea of “vengeance” represented in the film?

Vengeance does not manifest as a slight thing in the film. Because of how Novak paces and constructs his ideas, the revenge theme rests on the sidelines for much of the duration. It is only later in the film, probably the climax, when it manifests and does so with a bloody rage. Ty and the Shaw family probably had other ideas of avenging Abilene’s death but their planning was incoherent, just like real-life. We did anticipate something right in the world of movies wherein Ty, with his mates, would take on the drug cartel and decimate them in true Western savagery. But all of that does not happen and that is why I felt Novak kind of defied expectations with his actual execution.

Ben shooting Quentin was not how Novak wanted to represent revenge. He felt that Ben’s coming-0f-age and caring about other people, letting go of his empty conscience was the real revenge upon the world. There is a monologue where he berates the Shaw family and people of the region when Abilene’s grandmother casually lets out that Abilene was a heavy drug user. She actually died because of an overdose but Ben did not hold back and saw this as an attempt on Ty’s part to deceive him, failing to see his own deception. I love how the part where the family comes to check on him after his car explodes and this monologue are placed right after each other.

This was the real idea of avenging this indifference and lack of compassion. The world is becoming a colder place every passing day and Novak wanted to address this uneasy truth through his narrative. People are divided by different ideas and the media but also by their own selfishness.

Vengeance (2022) Movie Ending, Explained: Why does Ben delete all the recordings?

So Vengeance ended with Ben shooting Quentin in the tent and then deleting all the recordings. The Shaw family eventually got to know what Ben did for Abilene when Sharon drops him off at the bus stop. But why did Ben delete all the recordings when they were approved, collated by Eloise, and set to feature on a national radio network? It is difficult to answer it in absolute terms. An altruistic analysis suggests that Ben did it because he did not want the family to become “famous characters” that people talked about and discussed. Their grief was shared by Ben, not by virtue of a personal connection but by a human connection that he discovered late in the film. Despite the revelation that Abilene was probably not the sweet angel she was made out to be, Ben decided to stand up for the idea of a moral wrong going unnoticed; a true journalistic achievement.

It was his investigative instinct that brought him face to face with the truth and he decided to act and not just keep quiet. He could not bare Quentin getting away with what he did with the young girls and boys in town. It was not his intention to avenge Abilene but avenge the idea of evil forces overcoming the good. Ben realized that the Shaws were dealing with the loss o Abilene like a family and wanted her memory and the truth of her story contained within that safe space. Mass media coverage of incidents like these is the ugly truth of our societies.

Someone’s suffering and trauma becomes a titillating news feed for everyday people who have gotten used to changed sensibilities. Novak creates an anti-thesis to this idea and salvages all those who prefer to look the other way with the character of Ben Manalowitz. He is the true modern anti-hero we all need to head to make the world a better place.

Read More: Beast (2022): Movie Review & Ending Explained

Vengeance (2022) trailer.

Vengeance (2022) Movie Links – IMDb , Rotten Tomatoes Vengeance (2022) Movie Cast – B.J. Novak, Boyd Holbrook, Dove Cameron, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher

Where to watch vengence, trending right now.

Self-effacing and self-absorbed. College at RGNUL. A Cùle forever. Driven, ambitious, and "I hate most people". Oh, and I love movies if that wasn't obvious.

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What critics think of ‘Vengeance,’ B.J. Novak’s new movie

The reviews (both good and bad) of the newton native's dark comedy/thriller..

By Kevin Slane

Newton native B.J. Novak, best known for his role as Ryan on NBC’s “The Office,” has taken the creative reins in his most recent projects. He created a satirical anthology show “The Premise” for FX, and this week marks his film directorial debut with another dark comedy: “Vengeance.”

Novak pulls double duty as both the director and star of “Vengeance,” playing a smug, entitled millennial stereotype named Ben, a Brooklyn writer. When a girl he hooked up with a few times but barely remembers turns up dead and he is inexplicably (in Ben’s eyes, anyway) invited to the funeral, he travels to West Texas in the hopes of turning the saga into a podcast. Once he’s made it to her small Texas hometown in his rented Prius, Ben realizes there’s more to the story and the people he had pre-judged.

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 time of this article’s publication.

That said, a single number can’t adequately capture the range of critical response, and many of the reviews coded as “fresh” or “rotten” by the critical aggregation site have a bit more nuance. To help you judge whether to rush to theaters starting Thursday afternoon, here’s what some of the top film critics are saying, both good and bad, about “Vengeance.”

Stephanie Zacharek of Time  credited Novak with perfectly inhabiting the role of a millennial stereotype.

Novak is a sly one, and though the script is clever and the direction certainly serviceable, it’s his face that really holds you: with those half-skeptical, half-trusting eyes, he has the visage of a person who has probably always looked a bit like a little old man, even as a baby. As Ben, he’s a knowing naif, eagerly exploring the desolate West Texas landscape in his rented Prius.

Michael O’Sullivan of the Washington Post  implored readers to see “Vengeance,” giving it 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) and praising Novak for his wit.

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.

In her review for The Boston Globe , Natalia Winkelman  praised Novak for his self-satirizing streak and for showcasing his directorial skills in his debut.

That Novak casts himself as this lead wisenheimer is, well, wise; the Newton-born writer and actor famous for his role on “The Office” has always had a knack for skewering his own sensibilities. In “Vengeance,” Novak proves his chops both as an adept filmmaker and skillful satirist of contemporary mores.

Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt  acknowledged that some of Novak’s jokes landed, but suggested they grew tiresome over the course of the film. 

Novak, who spent years refining the squirrelly ticks of his self-regarding salesman Ryan on nine seasons of The Office, isn’t a demonstrably different dude here. His callow-millennial act — and the navel-gazing vagaries of modern content culture — make fertile ground for satire, and many of the jokes here do find their soft targets. But it can also feel hollow and exhausting in main-character movie form.

In the New York Times, A.O. Scott  credits Novak for taking a big swing at trenchant cultural commentary, but suggests that the filmmaker’s work is “not quite as smart as it thinks it is.”

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..

Sarah Hagi of the Globe and Mail wrote that “Vengeance” would have worked better if Novak hadn’t cast himself as the lead character and thus felt it necessary to somewhat redeem the protagonist. 

As a director, Novak would likely be more successful if he hadn’t cast himself as the main focus of his own mystery. There are occasional moments when the film is so close to feeling like it is accomplishing its goals – to be seen as a sharp and comedic critique of the cost of storytelling, with a fun little whodunnit at its core – but it never quite gets there.

Benjamin Lee of The Guardian  wrote that the characters of “Vengeance” are “cartoonish,” and that its overall message was muddled due to a scattershot approach.

Updating an age-old fish out of water setup such as this with the internet as an obvious influence makes the world immediately that much smaller and Novak’s character explaining what a writer does and what a magazine is pushes the culture clash into cartoonish territory. As he shifts from comedy to thriller, with a rather banal crime plot taking centre stage, I’m not quite sure if Novak knows what he wants to say with a film that clearly, desperately wants to say something..

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Common Sense Media Review

Thoughtful comedy questions stereotypes; violence, language.

Parents Need to Know

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 Office ), the movie is about reevaluating preconceived notions that are based on where…

Why Age 14+?

Strong language includes "a--hole," "balls," "dumbass," "s--t," and several uses

Opioid use within a party atmosphere, leading to negative consequences. Social d

Guns. Shooting with blood. Explosion with minor wounds. Hard punch. Drug overdos

Apple products. A brand of tequila is shown prominently. Some brands are used as

Men talk about/justify their "pick 'em up and throw 'em away" treatment of women

Any Positive Content?

Ben is an intellectual, opportunistic New York journalist who arrives in Texas w

In a socially disconnected and antagonistic world, we need to choose to connect

A Black woman is depicted positively, as a successful leader who chooses her emp

Strong language includes "a--hole," "balls," "dumbass," "s--t," and several uses of "f--k," including "motherf----r" and "f--ktards." A 9-year-old is called "El Stupido" by his family as if it's his name.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Opioid use within a party atmosphere, leading to negative consequences. Social drinking at bars and parties. At start of film, a sympathetic character dies of an overdose. Several moments of discussion about whether she did or didn't have a drug habit.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Guns. Shooting with blood. Explosion with minor wounds. Hard punch. Drug overdose.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Apple products. A brand of tequila is shown prominently. Some brands are used as punchlines or to define characters, such as Whataburger, Fritos, Solo cups, and Prius.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Men talk about/justify their "pick 'em up and throw 'em away" treatment of women. References to casual sex. Sex implied by showing a couple in bed together after the fact.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Role Models

Ben is an intellectual, opportunistic New York journalist who arrives in Texas with a superior point of view but comes to appreciate the qualities of the people he meets there -- and to realize that being different doesn't make you less than. He does a lot of soul-searching about who he is as a person. Movie offers an example of the beauty of a close family, although they have their flaws.

Positive Messages

In a socially disconnected and antagonistic world, we need to choose to connect rather than judge. Explores why people are prone to believe conspiracy theories. But there's a negative approach to solving a problem.

Diverse Representations

A Black woman is depicted positively, as a successful leader who chooses her employee's well-being over the project she has invested in. Portrayal of West Texas characters initially plays into stereotypes, but as Ben gets to know them, it becomes clear to him and to viewers that they're much more than "hicks." Mexican characters are portrayed as being in a cartel; cartel head is depicted as sensitive, caring.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

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 Office ), 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 -- Mexican cartel members, Texas hicks, etc. -- but the story argues that if we look closer, we can see people for their full selves, rather than labels. As a result, the film gives both urban and rural folks the ability to laugh together, at themselves. The central plot is about a young woman who fatally overdosed on opioids, and there's a lot of talk about drug use and partying. Drugs aren't portrayed positively, but drinking is shown as contributing to a social bond. Guns are presented as part of Texas culture, including one owned by a 9-year-old. There's a shooting that's pretty bloody. Language and insults include "dumbass," "s--t," and variations of "f--k." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (3)
• Kids say (4)

Based on 3 parent reviews

Underage girl portrayed sexually

Dark funny humor with some 'philosophy', what's the story.

When Ben (B.J. Novak), a writer for The New Yorker , receives a call stating that his "girlfriend" Abilene Shaw ( Lio Tipton ) is dead from a drug overdose, he has to scroll through his phone to figure out who this girl was. Baffled but curious, Ben flies to Texas to attend Abby's funeral. When her brother ( Boyd Holbrook ) asks Ben to join him in a quest for VENGEANCE, Ben realizes that Abby's close-knit family and her not-so-mysterious death have the makings of a perfect podcast.

Is It Any Good?

Novak clearly poured his heart and soul into this story, which works hard to try to show Americans that, to understand each other, we need more compassion and connection and fewer snap judgments. Using comedy, mystery, and self-deprecating humor, Novak's Ben sets out confidently to show why people are prone to believe conspiracy theories. But what he learns is that while he may be more formally educated than many of the folks in Abby's Texas town, that doesn't make him better -- in fact, he may be worse. Prejudice starts with not understanding someone who's different from you, and Vengeance helps to put in perspective that different is simply that: different.

Novak's sweat is all over the screen here. Choosing to star in the first feature you've also written and directed is a lot to bite off for your first chew. He may have benefited from having some distance from all three of the top above-the-line roles. He proves himself as an actor's director, eliciting memorable performances from his actors, including John Mayer's hysterical and self-mocking turn as Ben's womanizing wingman. Each member of the cast delivers standout work, most of all Ashton Kutcher , who's so fantastic as small-town music producer Quentin Sellers that it's impossible to see anyone else wearing the character's cleavage-torn white T-shirt, scarf, and white suit and pulling it (or the role) off. Quentin says to Ben at one point that "nobody writes anything original, we just translate." In Vengeance , Novak translates New York City and Texas culture with such accuracy in strokes both broad and specific that it's hilarious rather than offensive -- and even if you don't totally get it, it's still funny. Meanwhile, big chunks of dialogue are overfull of "wisdom" to spew at viewers -- wise words that Novak probably intended as quotes destined for wall art. But the messages fly so fast that it's nearly impossible to catch and process them. Still, that's a small quibble, as is the movie's inconsistent sound quality. The biggest issue, though, is the ending, which just doesn't ring true for Ben -- at least, for Ben as played by Novak. It's the one time that Novak taking on three large roles in the production seems to be a problem, as Ben becomes Novak's fantasy version of himself rather than the more believable version of himself that he plays throughout the film. Or, perhaps this is because his message is too effective: If he's begging viewers to truly see people for their whole selves, we can't help but see him through his character and through his work. Better said through the words of Abilene Shaw, "heart sees heart."

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how curiosity initiates Ben's journey and leads to personal growth. Why is this an important character strength? How can changing your environment or home base, even for a short time, help broaden your perspective?

Are drug use and drinking glamorized in Vengeance ? Are there realistic consequences? Why does that matter?

How does the script wink at some of the rules of filmmaking? What elements get a "payoff"?

A few characters make memorable speeches about their theories on human psychology and the world we live in. Which opinions, if any, resonated with you?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 29, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : August 16, 2022
• Cast : B.J. Novak , Issa Rae , Dove Cameron
• Director : B.J. Novak
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Queer actors
• Studio : Focus Features
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Brothers and Sisters
• Character Strengths : Curiosity
• Run time : 94 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language and brief violence
• Last updated : May 22, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Vengeance (United States, 2022)

Vengeance tries for something different and succeeds. But, although screenwriter/director B.J. Novak swings for the fences, he doesn’t quite get the ball out of the park. This Blumhouse production marries fish-out-of-water elements with some philosophical musings and offbeat characters that might remind viewers of (Robert) Altman lite. The ending feels a little forced, as if the filmmakers felt that not providing some kind of punch might disappoint viewers, but there are enough little pleasures along the way to more than compensate.

Novak plays Ben Manalowitz, a New York-based podcaster who is looking for the perfect subject when one falls into his lap. He is contacted by Ty Shaw (Boyd Holbrook), the brother of Abilene Shaw (Lio Tipton), a woman with whom Ben once had a brief fling. The two haven’t seen one another for a while, both having moved on to other bed partners, and it wasn’t serious in the first place. Somehow, however, Ty and his family believe that Ben was Abby’s serious boyfriend. Sobbing over the phone, Ty informs Ben that Abby is dead. Initially, the nonplused podcaster tries to deny everything but then it dawns on him that by playing this role, he might be able to produce something special. It gets better when Ben arrives on the ground in Texas and learns that Ty thinks Abby was murdered (even though the official cause of death was an accidental overdose), so the podcast-in-progress, dubbed “Dead White Girl,” becomes an investigation.

The murder mystery plays a distant second to the people populating Ben’s narrative. He arrives in Texas with a series of preconceived notions and stereotypes and, although some are validated, most are spectacularly exploded. And the more he learns about Abby, the more he wonders about this woman who briefly crossed his path. He comes to know the members of her family – Ty; her mother, Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron); her plain-spoken grandmother (Melissa Chambers); and her sisters and younger brother – as more than “colorful” characters used to fill in the creases of his podcast. He wonders at his own role as an outsider worming his way into the family’s confidence in order to exploit their grief. His editor, Eloise (Issa Rae), increasingly loves the material he sends her but with every new clip, Ben feels less upbeat about what he’s achieving.

One of the most offbeat peripheral characters is record producer Quentin Sellers, who’s played by Ashton Kutcher in full charismatic sleazeball mode. Sellers worked with Abby and has a compelling philosophy about the impermanence of life’s unrecorded moments. It’s a perfect explanation for the popularity of social media and why so many people are driven to do crazy things in pursuit of “fame.” Yet, while popularity may be fleeting, those clips, archived online, have a permanence that may outlive the people who made them. In the end, Sellers opines, all that remains of any of us are our recorded moments. Everything else fades away.

Vengeance doesn’t break new ground or do anything staggeringly original but it doesn’t feel like it was churned out by someone seeking blockbuster returns. It’s the kind of movie that came out with regularity around the turn of the century but has become increasingly rare. Flawed but fresh, Novak’s feature debut got me to laugh with him and at him while simultaneously taking the story seriously and becoming involved in all its quirks and twists.

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Johnny Oleksinski

‘vengeance’ review: b.j. novak’s texas murder film tries to do too much.

“Vengeance” is a movie about making a podcast while solving a murder mystery. How novel! 

Or it would be, were it not for the better Hulu comedy series “Only Murders in the Building,” which has a similar premise and is releasing new episodes at the very same time.

Running time: 94 minutes. Rated R (language and brief violence). In theaters.

Where B.J. Novak’s (“The Office”) promising-if-overcrowded directorial debut tries to differentiate itself from the Steve Martin/Martin Short show is its fish-out-of-water theme. 

Novak also wrote and stars in the movie as Ben Manalowitz, a neurotic New Yorker (and a writer for the New Yorker) who reluctantly jets off to the farthest reaches of Texas after he learns that a girl he had been hooking up with is dead.

The woman, Abilene, told her wacky Texas family that Ben was her devoted boyfriend, and they naturally want him to fly in for her funeral. We’re, at first, led to believe “Vengeance” is a film about the awful things piggish men do to women, like sleep with a bunch and then deceive them. But not all is as it seems.

When Ben arrives in the Lone Star State, Abilene’s brother Ty (Boyd Holbrook) insists that the tragic situation is fishy and that his sis was actually killed — and together they must nab the murderer. 

“I don’t avenge deaths,” says Ben in a Woody Allen-ish way. “It’s just not who I am!”

But the fame-hungry writer commits to the vigilante cause and works with a podcast producer friend (Issa Rae) back in NYC to turn the story into a hit series.

The idea is OK, but all the “Green Acres”-style city-versus-country commentary in the satire is tired. Abilene’s little brother, for example, is only called El Stupido (Eli Bickel). And all the family likes to talk about is their love of Whataburger. Everybody’s got a gun, everybody wears cowboy boots, everybody cries about the Alamo, yippee-ki-yay . We half expect Ben to sing, “Darling, I love you but give me Park Avenue!”

There are darker, more relevant threads. During Ben’s investigation, he learns about a popular hangout spot in the desert called “The Afterparty” where drug overdose deaths are common, and which brings to mind the opioid addiction epidemic.

He later learns that Abilene was a talented, aspiring singer and meets her sleazy pal Quentin (Ashton Kutcher), a small-time record producer.  

The half-baked whodunit aspect, however, is un-involving. As Ben becomes more absorbed in and open to the regional quirks of Texas life, we completely stop caring who might have killed this woman and stare off into beautiful horizons. The supporting characters, unlike “Only Murders,” aren’t eccentric or mysterious enough to grab us. 

Novak’s forever-skill as an actor is likability, and that approachable magnetism is on display here. What doesn’t work in this otherwise naturalistic movie are the punchlines he’s written for himself. Too planned and stilted, not terribly funny. The huge size of all the actors’ humor never matches the intimate way the film has been shot.

Nonetheless, there are glimmers of directing talent here. Novak’s off-camera career isn’t Texas Toast just yet.

Moon Knight is Finally Back and He Already Has a Target on His Back

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The following contains major spoilers for Vengeance of the Moon Knight #8, on sale now from Marvel Comics.

Marvel's original Moon Knight is officially back in action, and he is already on track for a direct confrontation with his would-be successor.

As a new dawn breaks in the pages of Vengeance of the Moon Knight #8, the titular hero's longtime allies are finally reunited with the founder of the Midnight Mission they so dutifully protect. Thanks to Khonshu being freed from his Asgardian prison, Marc Spector is resurrected by his patron god. Unfortunately, this means there is no longer room for a second Moon Knight, and it is hard to imagine that Marc's successor will give up that mantle without a fight.

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Vengeance of the Moon Knight #8

• Written by JED MACKAY
• Art by DEVMALYA PRAMANIK
• Colors by RACHELLE ROSENBERG
• Letters by VC's CORY PETIT
• Main cover art by DAVIDE PARATORE
• Variant cover by ALESSANDRO CAPPUCCIO & RACHELLE ROSENBERG

After Marc Spector sacrificed himself to save New York City from what would have been a truly devastating attack, he was unable to resurrect himself as he had done so many times before. This was because Khonshu, the God of the Moon who Marc derives his powers from, was still imprisoned deep beneath Asgard for his crimes against the world. Not long after Marc's demise, the mantle of Moon Knight was taken by Max Coleridge , better known as the Shroud, who was desperate for a way to reclaim the life he felt he had lost control of.

During Marvel Comics' recently concluded Blood Hunt crossover event , the skies of Earth were blacked out entirely by Darkforce energies to make way for an army of vampires to take over the globe. This vampiric army was led by none other than Marvel's very own Daywalker, Blade, who had somehow become possessed by the spirit of the very first vampire, Varnae. The carnage that ensued brought nearly every single Marvel hero and villain into the fight, save for those who were almost immediately cut down or transformed in the initial attack.

Marvel’s New X-Factor is Just Getting Started and They’re Failing

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In the hopes of evening the odds, Moon Knight's allies Tigra and Hunter's Moon took it upon themselves to free Khonshu from imprisonment. Using the Wrecker's enchanted crowbar, the duo were able to not only ensure Khonshu's freedom, but Marc Spector's return as well. So far, this hasn't caused any serious issues, although it remains to be seen what Khonshu's next move will be considering he was imprisoned for leading his own attempt at taking over the world.

Vengeance of the Moon Knight #8 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.

Source: Marvel Comics

Vengeance of the Moon Knight

Clad in the black of mourning, the Midnight Mission remains! But who is left to keep the faith? And how have they been changed by the Black Spectre's master stroke? The next chapter of MOON KNIGHT starts here as the congregants of the Midnight Mission pick up the pieces and carry on the mission...and find themselves faced with a mysterious new enemy in eerily familiar vestments. This comic was written by Jed Mackay and the artist is Alessandro Cappuccio.

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Bad Monkey gives us Vince Vaughn at his best

The actor stars as former Florida detective Andrew Yancy in the Apple TV+ adaptation of Carl Hiaasen's novel.

Kristen Baldwin is the TV critic for EW

For years, Hollywood hasn’t really known what to do with Vince Vaughn . A tree-tall Midwesterner with an everyman face and a rapid-fire delivery, Vaughn was the king of R-rated comedies through the first half of the 2000s. But eventually, the risk-averse movie industry ditched ideas for IP (“The people in charge don’t want to get fired,” the actor noted recently ), leaving the Old School star fewer outlets for his specific comedic style.

Apple TV+

After two very different forays into television — winging it with Larry David as Freddy Funkhauser in Curb Your Enthusiasm ; glowering his way through the dreary second season of True Detective — Vince Vaughn returns to TV with Bad Monkey (streaming now on Apple TV+), an adaptation of Carl Hiaasen’s 2013 novel. The 10-episode crime dramedy, developed by Bill Lawrence ( Ted Lasso ), gives Vaughn a showcase to do what he does best — though with a gentler, more mature polish.

“My problem is that I try to do the right thing, but in the wrong way,” explains Andrew Yancy (Vaughn), a former police detective living in southern Florida. That propensity for misguided behavior is why Yancy was punitively transferred from the Miami PD to the Keys some years back. It’s also why he felt the need to defend his girlfriend, Bonnie ( Michelle Monaghan ) from her brutish husband (Jeffrey S. Herman) — an act that resulted in his current suspension from the Key West PD. (To pay the bills, he now works as a restaurant inspector.) And it’s why Yancy can’t help himself from meddling when his former partner, Rogelio (John Ortiz), asks him to do a simple favor: Deliver a severed arm pulled from the local waters to the coroner’s office in Miami.

The appendage drags Yancy into a mystery involving a seemingly unconnected group of characters: Christopher ( Rob Delaney ), a greedy real estate developer; Neville (Ronald Pete), a Bahamian fisherman on the verge of eviction thanks to Christopher’s latest project; Eve (Meredith Hagner), a suspiciously carefree widow whose husband is identified as the owner of the severed arm; and Rosa (Natalie Martinez), a Miami medical examiner who escapes the grim grind of her job by helping Yancy investigate the origins of the lonely limb.

Said mystery takes its time unfolding over 10 episodes — but it’s fine, because Bad Monkey is really a vehicle for sand-and-surf vibes, propelled by an extensive and appealing ensemble cast. Jodie Turner-Smith glides fluidly between enigmatic menace and youthful yearning as Gracie — an Obeah woman known to locals as the Dragon Queen — who Neville hires to curse Christopher. Ortiz delivers an amusing, deadpan frustration as Yancy’s straight-man foil, and Alex Moffat ( SNL ) is pitch-perfect smarmy as Evan Shook, a realtor desperately trying to sell a hideous McMansion next to Yancy’s house. Zach Braff is atypically understated as Izzy O’Peele, a pill-popping former surgeon mixed up in the whole mess.

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Unlike so many of the fast-talking, joke-spewing, razor-tongued guys Vaughn has played in the past, Andrew Yancy has a genuine, caring heart from the jump, not one that needs to be revealed over a necessary character arc. Yancy needles Rogelio over everything — his driving, how he eats ice cream — but he’s most concerned about his buddy’s inability to “experience joy.” In the past, Vaughn might have been tempted to douse all Yancy’s dialogue with the sour aftertaste of superiority, but here his one-liners feel more like a peck on the cheek than a slap in the face. He and Martinez have a playful chemistry that almost overshadows their 14-year age gap, which the writers dutifully acknowledge. (“I haven’t had much luck with guys my age,” Rosa tells her sister Mel, played by Gizel Jimenez.)

The story is recounted in voiceover by Captain Fitzpatrick (Tom Nowicki), a local fishing guide, whose folksy asides fit the mood — though they did, at times, test the limits of my tolerance for narration. Monaghan brings a languid sexiness to Bonnie, but her storyline feels isolated from the rest of the narrative. I would have loved more with her and Ashley Nicole Black’s Johnna Russell, the Oklahoma federal agent who tracks her down; perhaps that's a wish for season 2.

Bad Monkey hasn’t been renewed yet, but the finale sets up another mystery… and Hiaasen did write a second book starring his loquacious (former) detective Andrew Yancy. If Vaughn's game, so am I. It's been fun rediscovering why we all liked him so much in the first place. Grade: B+

The first two episodes of Bad Monkey are streaming now on Apple TV+.

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'Bad Monkey' Review: Like 'Reacher,' But With Vince Vaughn

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The Big Picture

• Apple TV+'s Bad Monkey follows Andrew Yancy, a former detective solving a murder mystery in the Florida Keys.
• Bad Monkey , starring Vince Vaughn, resembles Reacher , with a comedic twist and a convoluted yet engaging plot.
• Bad Monkey features Vaughn's strong performance in a chaotic role, balanced by a supporting cast that often feels too expansive.

If you’ve ever stepped into an airport bookstore, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the name Carl Hiaasen . The bestselling author and journalist is well-known for his sunbleached, Florida-set crime novels, with memorable titles like Strip Tease , Tourist Season , and Bad Monkey among them. His work has been adapted for the screen before — most infamously with a particular Demi Moore movie back in 1996 . However, in a streaming age where series like Reacher and The Lincoln Lawyer dominate the charts, now feels like the perfect time for Hollywood to attempt to re-adapt one of Hiaasen's works.

Apple TV+'s adaptation of Bad Monkey pairs Hiaasen's storytelling with a recognizable star in the form of Vince Vaughn , in his first leading role on television since True Detective Season 2 , and Bill Lawrence , whose career has flourished in the wake of creating series like Ted Lasso and Shrinking . With this kind of pedigree, Bad Monkey has everything it needs to be a hit for Apple TV+. There’s just one thing: it's been in development for over two years and has seemingly been dumped onto the streamer with minimal fanfare. Given the level of talent attached, it's hard not to at least have some interest in the series — but does Bad Monkey actually deliver in terms of expectations?

Bad Monkey follows Andrew Yancy, a former Miami detective demoted to restaurant inspector in the Florida Keys. When a tourist finds a severed arm while fishing, Yancy sees an opportunity to regain his badge by unraveling a web of greed and corruption. Along the way, he encounters a cast of quirky characters and a troublesome monkey.

What Is ‘Bad Monkey’ About?

Based on the 2013 novel of the same name, Bad Monkey kicks off when a team of sport fishermen discovers a severed arm in the ocean, with its middle finger permanently extended in the flipping-off position. In order to avoid bad press, former police detective-turned-restaurant inspector Andrew Yancy (Vaughn) is tasked with taking possession of the arm and hiding it before the news leaks. The series also spends an equal amount of time focusing on Neville Stafford ( Ronald Peet ), a Bahamian fisherman whose childhood home has been destroyed and replaced with a new development by a wealthy businessman named Christopher ( Rob Delaney ) and his younger and shrill significant other, Eve ( Meredith Hagner ). Seeking revenge, Neville strikes an unholy deal with a spiritual shaman known as the Dragon Queen ( Jodie Turner-Smith ). As bodies begin piling up, Yancy begins to realize that there’s much more to this severed arm than meets the eye — and he soon finds himself at odds with the very same people he worked alongside for years.

Vince Vaughn Is a Hilarious Agent of Chaos in 'Bad Monkey'

Bad Monkey , for better and for worse — but mostly for better — operates as a Reacher clone, with Vaughn filling in for Alan Ritchson . The series has all the twists, turns, corruption, and mysteries that populate the aforementioned series, just with a much more overt comedic tone. If you like Reacher , you’ll probably like Bad Monkey , but it also depends on how much you like Vaughn as a performer.

In Apple TV+'s new series, Vaughn leans fully into his fast-talking and wise-ass personality, one that viewers have either come to be fans of or absolutely cannot stand. That said, Vaughn is perfect for Bad Monkey , with his portrayal of Yancy utterly fitting the mold of one of the series’ many Florida Man-like figures. He’s charismatic, but he’s also an agent of pure and utter chaos. Vaughn is having a blast with the role, and even if he is just playing an iteration of the same character he's inhabited before , he’s exactly the kind of actor who makes all the sense in the world to lead a Reacher -esque show with a black comedy twist.

'Bad Monkey's Mystery Becomes Too Convoluted for Its Own Good

However, Bad Monkey 's mystery begins to stretch thin as the series goes on. With 10 45-minute-plus episodes, there’s only so much that can happen before things start feeling more and more repetitive. Much like another major Apple TV+ adaptation this summer, Presumed Innocent , Bad Monkey loves to end its episodes with cliffhangers that are mostly resolved within the first minute of the following installment. In some ways, a series like Bad Monkey could have benefited from a more bingeable release strategy, but in other ways, the show does find ways to keep you watching. Even if Bad Monkey ’s plot does become a bit too sprawling and convoluted for its own good, it always remains intriguing.

However, some of the show's subplots frustratingly lead nowhere. The always-reliable Michelle Monaghan shows up as Bonnie Witt, a former lover of Yancy's, but her arc throughout the series doesn't add too much to the central mystery; moreover, her purpose only feels like it is there to serve Yancy's new romance with Natalie Martinez 's Rosa. Monaghan, thankfully, still does a great job with the role despite the lack of material she's afforded. In fact, the entire supporting cast delivers the utmost commitment to their roles. John Ortiz is a scene stealer as Yancy's friend and former partner Rogelio, who's going through some relationship entanglements of his own, and it's also amusing to see Delaney and Hagner channel their comedic personas to take on two far darker and more sinister roles than what we normally see from them. Bad Monkey may not be perfect, but, much like its source material, it feels like the perfect kind of summer viewing material . With a charismatic cast and a mostly compelling mystery, this series is another overall win for both Lawrence and Apple TV+.

Bad Monkey is a massively entertaining dark comedy series with a terrific performance from Vince Vaughn.

• Vince Vaughn plays to all of his greatest strengths as the fast-talking and snarky Andrew Yancy.
• The episode-by-episode cliffhangers help keep you engaged in the series.
• Bad Monkey capably fills the void left by Reacher.
• The story becomes convoluted thanks to the sheer number of characters involved.

Bad Monkey premieres on Apple TV+ on August 14.

Watch on Apple TV+

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The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, and his people to make a daring last ... Read all A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg. A sudden attack by Wulf, a clever and ruthless Dunlending lord seeking vengeance for the death of his father, forces Helm Hammerhand, the King of Rohan, and his people to make a daring last stand in the ancient stronghold of the Hornburg.

• Kenji Kamiyama
• Phoebe Gittins
• Arty Papageorgiou
• Jeffrey Addiss
• Miranda Otto
• Shaun Dooley

Top cast 13

• Helm Hammerhand

• Fréaláf Hildeson
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Did you know

• Trivia Set 183 years before the events of "The Lord of the Rings".
• Connections Referenced in AniMat's Crazy Cartoon Cast: Geeked Week for Freaks (2021)
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• December 13, 2024 (United States)
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Burbank, California, USA (Studio)
• Middle-earth Enterprises
• New Line Cinema
• Sola Digital Arts
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 10 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital
• IMAX 6-Track

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