Vengeance (2022)

January 17, 2023 5:13 AM

A journalist and podcaster from New York City travels to West Texas in order to report on the death of a girl he was hooking up with. Written, directed by, and starring B.J. Novak
posted by Mchelly (4 comments total)

I only just caught this (it flew under the radar for me) but it was one of my favorite movies this year. I thought the writing was incredibly sharp, and Ashton Kutcher’s character was fascinating.

The interchange with her sister about Chekhov’s gun, and with her brother about being in a Liam Neeson movie, almost made me choke laughing.
posted by Mchelly at 5:18 AM on January 17, 2023 [3 favorites]

Watched this tonight on Amazon Prime. Highly recommend it, great story that really held my attention. It was a deeper story than I initially thought, i will be thinking about its themes for awhile.
posted by jazon at 9:21 PM on January 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

As an academic who has spent a lot of time in small-town west Texas (and did a master's degree at Texas Tech), this movie was tailor-made for me. I know these people. Didn't quite make my top ten list of 2022, but it was a lot of fun. My daughter and I yell out "because it's there!" whenever we pass a Whataburger now.

One thing I appreciated (even if it's a bit unrealistic) is just how bright and informed the small town kids are. The movie didn't go for the stereotype of the stupid hicks, and that was refreshing.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:07 PM on January 18, 2023 [4 favorites]

I enjoyed the "I went to school in New Haven" / "oh, I went to school in Boston" exchange in this, but ultimately I find Novak to be a bit too smarmy for me even when he's amping up the smarminess on purpose to parody it. He seemed to want to have his cake and eat it too with on the one hand humanizing the characters his protagonist looks down on, and on the other hand running with some overly broad bits about how gun-obsessed they are and they don't know how a Tesla works. I didn't really buy the finale, either. Still, there were some funny bits and it was deeper than I expected it to be.
posted by whir at 9:14 PM on January 19, 2023 [2 favorites]