Office Star’s R-Rated Revenge Comedy Is A Twisted Conspiracy Theory

By Robert Scucci
| Published 13 seconds ago

Normally, I’m not too keen on movies about writers trying to tell their career-defining story because they usually come off as ham-fisted and self-important. 2022’s Vengeance, written and directed by The Office’s B.J. Novak, starts with that all-too-familiar setup, but quickly becomes something much more as it unpacks its mystery and escalates into a full-blown revenge plot with no clear antagonist. Through its storytelling, we get a look at the quiet, isolated pockets of America that modern life has largely forgotten. In a community like this, gossip spreads fast, conspiracy theories run rampant, and everybody is hiding something from everybody else, or simply hiding from themselves.

Twisting like a corkscrew into a bottle of the cheapest gas station swill you can find, Vengeance plays its cards close to its chest and plays you right along with it as it slowly reveals what’s truly at stake. Whether you find its conclusion satisfying will depend on what you take away from it, but at the very least, you’ll have a few introspective moments that make Vengeance worth your time if you’re in the mood for some soul searching.

Writers Are The Worst

Ben Manalowitz (B.J. Novak) is a womanizing, self-aggrandizing New York writer trying to hit it big with his new podcast. He speaks in sweeping generalizations about what it means to be American and how we all search for meaning in misguided ways. For Ben, that means hooking up with as many women as possible and never committing, which brings us to the primary source of conflict in Vengeance: Abilene Shaw (Lio Tipton).

Abilene was just another name in rotation on Ben’s phone, but she becomes much more significant when her brother Ty (Boyd Holbrook) calls to tell him she’s died of a drug overdose, despite never even taking something as mild as Tylenol (according to him). He asks Ben to fly out to rural Texas for the funeral, even though they barely knew each other. When we meet the rest of Abilene’s family, it becomes clear she exaggerated their relationship, making it seem far more serious than it actually was.

To her mother Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron), Granny Carol (Louanne Stephens), sisters Kansas City (Dove Cameron) and Paris (Isabella Amara), and younger brother Mason (Eli Abrams Bickel), Ben was basically already family based on Abilene’s version of events. Ty reveals the real reason he reached out is because he believes Abilene was murdered, and in this part of Texas, things like that aren’t exactly handled by the book. While suspicion falls on a local drug dealer named Sancholo (Zach Villa), Ben is convinced her death was, unfortunately, self-inflicted and that the conspiracy theories are just an elaborate way for the family to cope with their loss.

Along the way, Ben befriends local music producer Quentin Sellers (Ashton Kutcher), who once tried to help Abilene launch her music career. Like Ben, Quentin is an outsider who relocated to a rural community, and his perspective on life, legacy, and storytelling paints a much darker picture involving local politics, vigilante justice, and the drug problem affecting the area. The issue is that everybody is telling their own version of events, including Ben, who sends every recorded conversation to his podcast producer Eloise (Issa Rae), who is more interested in crafting a compelling narrative than actually uncovering the truth.

Serious Pockets Of Humanity In West Texas

Going into this fully intending to tell a story about the lies we tell ourselves, Ben experiences several come-to-Jesus moments along the way. Through one of the best product placements I’ve ever seen, he realizes that places like Whataburger are more than just somewhere to grab a greasy meal in hicktown; they represent community and family, something that he doesn’t have a firm grasp on. He also starts to suspect he might be the target of an assassination plot himself. Even more surprising, he begins to consider that Abilene may have actually been murdered by someone still unknown, which undermines the entire reason he came to Texas in the first place.

Vengeance is awkward, heartfelt, and genuinely funny, using the tragedy at its core as a springboard to explore these ideas. Ben walks around with a tape recorder looking for a story he wants to tell, completely unaware that his presence is shaping the story itself in ways he could have never anticipated. By treating Abilene’s family as a jumping point for his career, he slowly realizes he embodies the exact behavior he claims to critique, and he doesn’t come to terms with that easily.

A hidden gem you may have missed on its initial release, Vengeance has a way of stopping you in your tracks and making you think about your life, your relationships, how you present yourself, and how others see you. If that sounds like something you’re up for, you can stream it right now on Netflix.