Vengeance is an American Black Comedy film written and directed by B.J. Novak in his feature directorial debut. The cast includes Novak himself, Boyd Holbrook, Dove Cameron, Issa Rae, and Ashton Kutcher. It was produced by Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, as well as Greg Gilreath and Adam Hendricks of Divide/Conquer.
Ben Manalowitz (Novak) is a journalist who flies to Texas after the death of an old hookup named Abby (Lio Tipton) at the behest of Abby's brother Ty (Holbrook), who suspects that she was actually murdered. The two investigate a location called "The Afterparty", but doing so is more complicated than it appears.
The film was released on July 29th, 2022.
Not to be confused with an old kung fu movie. Note the lack of an exclaimation mark. Also not to be confused with Batman's video game.
Previews: Trailer
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The film provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: Quentin Sellers, the polite, thoughtful, and friendly drug lord who thinks nothing of dragging overdosing girls out to "the afterparty" to die.
- "Back to Camera" Pose: Present in this poster.
- Chekhov's Gun: Name-dropped by Ben, who is then told that Chekhov's works barely have any guns in them. The trope itself comes into effect with:
- The Shaw family's large collection of guns, one of which is used in the end.
- Abi's phone, which provides the case-cracking clue once it's finally unlocked in the last act.
- Doesn't Like Guns: Being from New York, Ben doesn't own a gun and is off-put by the Shaws' cavalier attitude toward them. Even when he arms himself with Ty's gun, he's scandalized to learn that it is already loaded.
- Establishing Character Moment: Our first scene with Ben has him ranting with a buddy about how he wants to have as many shallow hook-ups as possible while learning as little as possible about his sexual partners. It also establishes that he says "one hundred percent" as a general phrase of agreement, which Ty misinterprets later.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Subverted. When Ben's Prius is bombed, only the bomb explodes, not the car itself. Ty suspects that if it had been a normal car, "with gas in it," the explosion would have been larger. He apparently thought that the Prius was fully electric.
- Evil Overlooker: Inverted. In the main poster, protagonist Ben is overlooking everyone else.
- Fish out of Water: New York journalist Ben Manalowitz finds himself in Texas, where he is very much out of his depth. He is used to the fast-paced city life, and he has trouble adjusting to how slow things are down south.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Played for Laughs, and also Exploited. Ben speaks to four separate law enforcement agencies in the area, and all four tend to shift responsibility of "the Afterparty" to another agency because it's in a spot where the jurisdictions overlap. Ben later discovers that Quinten has been exploiting this overlap so that none of the agencies actually investigate the Afterparty, specifically the people who die there.
- Ms. Fanservice: Kansas City Shaw is frequently seen scantily clad. She is played by Dove Cameron.
- Non-Fatal Explosions: Justified. Ben's car is bombed, but he comes away unscathed because the bombers were trying to mess with him, not kill him.
- Posthumous Character: Abby dies early on in the film offscreen. She only appears in video footage from her life. Abby stays as the focus of the film however as the plot centers on investigating how she'd died.
- Product Placement: The Shaw family absolutely loves Whataburger, though it's a bit subverted by the fact that the Shaws can't describe what they like about it except that "it's always right there."
- Sheep in Wolf's Clothing: Sancholo didn't actually kill Abby, but he claims credit for her death. This is because he wants to keep his position of power in the cartel, and that requires everyone else to believe he killed someone. The reality is that he has never killed anyone and wants to avoid doing so. In fact, he and Abby were very close during middle school because she used to read Harry Potter to him over the phone due to his parents not letting him read it.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The opening sequence has the silly novelty song "Red Solo Cup" playing over footage of Abi dying of an overdose.
- Stacked Characters Poster: See the page image.
- Suspect Is Hatless: Ben points out in an aerial photo that the ground where Abilene's body was found is covered with prints from cowboy boots. The sheriff sarcastically puts out an APB on any man in West Texas wearing cowboy boots.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to that woman who was overdosing and being dragged to the Afterparty, just like Abi?
