Direction: B.J. Novak
Country: USA
B.J. Novak wrote, directed and starred in Vengeance, his first directorial feature. He is Ben, a New York writer and podcaster who has one of those real Texan experiences when practically forced to travel south in order to attend the funeral of a young woman with whom he had a one-night stand. With the help of her pro-gun family, he decides to dig more into the possible causes of her death, primarily identified as a drug overdose. This way, he turns the film into a crime investigation with a journalistic perspective and an Altman-esque American contemporaneity that gradually shapes as a self-discovery journey.
The film seduces through provocative observations, in one of those rare cases where the characters and their lines are more absorbing than the images. Not that the visuals are bad, but the incisive social commentary about America (gun control, conspiracy theories, work ethics, law enforcement inefficacy, criminal negligence, and more) is what makes Vengeance a satisfying standout. It could have been another banal mystery film, but the cleverly written lines make it more than that. Only the acid conclusion wasn’t enough. Anyway, it was delicious fun watching Novak and Ashton Kutcher scratching under the varnish of American society with a sly tone, during their nearly philosophical discussions.
With something pertinent to say, Vengeance normally breathes pocket-sized suspense into a story that also benefits from a good sense of pacing and unusual characters. Attentive viewers will definitely extract something from this neo-noir experience.
