POSITIVES
Fish out of water premise. Cultural infused comedy. Socio-political discussions. Mystery. Death. Plot reveals and surprises. Podcasting. Whataburger. This film has a solid plot that kept me hooked throughout, and really made me want to see where the story was going.
I really enjoyed the clever and witty writing. From word play miscommunications, interesting monologues, awkward silly humor, to fascinating and insightful conversations.
A highlight is undoubtedly the characters that B.J.Novak’s "Ben Manalowitz" meets in Texas. Heck, Texas is itself a character! It’s very entertaining seeing Ben try to figure out how to talk and interact with these people, and get a handle on the Texas way of life.
Along with Novak, the rest of the cast is absolutely fantastic! Shout out to Boyd Holbrook, J. Smith-Cameron, Eli Bickel, Isabella Amara, Dove Cameron, Louanne Stephens, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher, plus many more.
Appreciated the fact that this is one of those character driven films that has something important to say. The social-cultural-political commentaries aren’t as straightforward as you might expect it to be, and I really loved the nuances that were applied to all that. Take heed to this movie’s message.
NEGATIVES
With a movie title like “Vengeance,” I can only imagine some people might go into this thinking that it’s a Liam Neeson type action thriller. You might be disappointed with the fact that it’s not.
It’s not without some plot tropes and cliches, but there is one particular story beat, where you are expecting it to happen, because it would with this kind of story, but at the same time you wished this movie would actually buck the trend and not go there anyway. Well it unfortunately did go there. Serves the plot and all, but still…
Gotta say, there are some moments when I would go “I can’t believe he does not know that already?!” I mean seriously now. Took me out of the movie from how unbelievable it was.
Depending on your reaction to the narrative and commentaries made in this movie; not to mention the stereotypes, you might get offended or patronized or insulted?
You may or may not have issues with how the movie concludes. It’ll definitely make you have to digest how you feel about how that went down.
lovedit ENJOYED IT likedititsokayitsmehitsterrible
