Vengeance - Film Review

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"You've got to keep living life. Like Catherine the Great, you've got to get back under the horse."

Vengeance (2022) is a black comedy starring B.J. Novak (from The Office and Inglorious Basterds), who also wrote and directed it.

Novak plays Ben Manalowitz, a New York-based journalist who receives a phone call late one night from a stranger telling him that his girlfriend is dead. Since he doesn't have a girlfriend, Ben is confused, but eventually, he works out that the girl, Abby, is someone he had casually "hooked up with" a couple of times.

Too embarrassed to correct her grieving brother on the phone, Ben ends up flying out to Texas for Abby's funeral. Once he is there, Abby's brother, Ty (Boyd Holbrook, from In the Shadow of the Moon ) confides in him that he believes that Abby was murdered and it is up to the two of them to avenge her.

Given the lack of evidence, Ben doesn't believe that Abby was murdered, but decides to stay on with her family to make a podcast about the case.

Vengeance also features the vivacious Issa Rae (from Lovebirds, and the web series Awkward Black Girl ) as the producer of Ben's podcast. Ashton Kutcher is Quentin Sellers, a music producer who owns a studio in the middle of the desert, resplendent in his white sparkly cowboy outfit.

I really enjoyed the dry wit of the writing, with Ben constantly underestimating the intelligence of Abby's family and the other people he meets in Texas. It's less about the mystery of Abby's death, and more about Ben trying to understand the broader issues around what happened to her.

Vengeance is a dark, witty film that will probably appeal most to fans of true crime podcasts. It is currently streaming on Netflix.



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