Review: BJ Novak ventures from The Office to Texas in dry-as-dust satire Vengeance

• Revenge
• Written and directed by BJ Novak
• Featuring BJ Novak, Issa Rae and Ashton Kutcher
• Classification R; 94 minutes
• Open in theaters July 29

Are you tired of watching movies centered on the boring lives of writers, like this one from last winter The tender bar? You could be. But be careful what you wish for, because the alternative to focusing on writers could be much worse – instead, you could watch a movie on a podcaster.

Are podcasts or podcasters inherently interesting or intelligent? No, not really, and certainly not in the cinema. But BJ Novak seems to think so with his directorial debut, Revenge.

Starring, directed and written by Novak (Office), Revenge centers on New York journalist Ben Manalowitz, a man who has it all. Signatures in all the prestigious publications in town, a cool apartment and a group of beautiful women who constantly text him for booty calls. But what he really wants is a podcast.

One night, Ben receives a call from the brother (Boyd Holbrook) of one of his old contacts, asking him to attend his sister’s funeral – it turns out that the deceased woman, Abby, was considered by her family as Ben’s stable girlfriend. . Unable to say no or explain to this grieving man that he barely remembers who Abby was, Ben travels to the middle of nowhere in Texas for her funeral. Once there, Ben realizes that Abby’s brother does not believe his sister died of an apparent opioid overdose, but rather was the victim of murder. That’s when Ben calls a producer he knows, Eloise (Issa Rae), and presents the story as a podcast.

It is clear that Novak did Revenge as a way to parody the lustful, morally unsound world of podcast reporting, where a dude wielding a New York tote bag can travel to the Deep South to make sense of the real America. Novak, however, lacks the depth required to make the film’s nitty-gritty themes work on screen. Abby’s family are flat caricatures of Texans, with Ben being another caricature with just a bit more emotional color.

As a director, Novak would probably be more successful if he hadn’t placed himself at the center of his own mystery. There are occasional moments when the film comes so close to feeling like it’s achieving its goals – to be seen as a sharp, comedic critique of the cost of storytelling, with a fun little thriller at its heart – but it just doesn’t get there. never quite. Ben’s character is the butt of many coastal elite jokes, but it’s clear that Novak needed Ben to be ultimately redeemed for his selfishness – even if that doesn’t align with the actual workings of the world he criticizes.

Revenge has a few infrequent laughs and, to Novak’s credit, is well-paced. But at the end of the day, he just doesn’t have much to say worth watching — or even listening to on a podcast.

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