Vengeance

“Vengeance” is a 2022 Drama/Comedy starring B.J. Novak (The Office), Boyd Holbrook (Logan), Ashton Kutcher (The Butterfly Effect), Issa Rae (The Lovebirds), Louanne Stephens (Longmire), and Zach Villa (American Horror Story).

A playboy from NY City, who jumps from woman to woman, is trying to make it in the podcast scene. He receives a phone call from a woman’s brother, who he hooked up with a few times, telling him his girlfriend is dead. The woman’s family thinks he is her boyfriend and wants him to attend her funeral in Texas. When he’s down there the brother convinces him, she was murdered, and he agrees to help find the killer thinking he has found a subject for the perfect podcast.

I was surprised how good this movie was. It’s really well written, and you find yourself wrapped up in the story as B.J. Novak tries to find out what happened to the girl. It’s a little predictable as you know he’s going to go from self-absorbed dick to caring about more than just himself as he gets wrapped up with her slightly dysfunctional family. It doesn’t matter though because even though you know it’s going to happen it’s written well, and brings a good balance of being heart felt, comedy, and drama. This is also B.J. Novak’s directorial debut for a film, and it’s a great debut. The only qualm I have with the movie is the ending, I felt it a little anticlimactic and lacking, still it’s a great movie and worth watching. You can currently catch it in some theaters, and on Peacock. I give it an 8/10.

They/Them

“They/Them” is a 2022 Peacock exclusive horror movie starring Kevin Bacon (You Should Have Left), Theo Germaine (Work in Progress), Anna Chlumsky (My Girl), Austin Crute (Daybreak), and Darwin del Fabro (Dangerous Liaisons).

A group of LGBTQ teens go to a conversion camp, all for different reasons while a horrifying experience awaits.

This is an LGBTQ movie, and it is getting slammed online with a 3.3/10 on IMDB, and a 32 percent on rotten tomatoes, while all the reviews seem bad. Some have gone on to call it too “woke”. Which to a degree is true, but that’s not why it is bad. They focus too much on them being LGBTQ instead of the story. It’s supposed to be a slasher film, which to me it doesn’t matter who’s getting killed. A slasher film is a slasher film as long as it has a good story. However, the word slasher and horror movie are used very lightly. The first murder doesn’t happen until almost an hour in, around the 45 min mark. When there’s more gay sex scenes than killings, is it really a horror movie? It’s not the worst horror movie I’ve seen, but it’s not good either. Not even the worse Kevin Bacon horror movie, that would be “You Should have Left.” That one is just a huge mess. Overall, this one could have been good if they cared more about the story, they missed a good opportunity. I would give this one a pass with a 4/10.

The Outfit

“The Outfit” is a 2022 crime drama/thriller starring Zoey Deutch (Why Him?), Dylan O’Brien (Teen Wolf), Mark Rylance (The BFG), and Johnny Flynn (Emma.).

An expert cutter gets dragged into a dangerous situation when a mobster stumbles into his shop after being a shot. He must now tread carefully and try to outsmart the mob in order to survive the night before things spiral out of control.

This is a great period film, it takes place in 1956 in Chicago, in a cutter’s shop. Which before this film I would have called him a tailor, but he makes it very clear anyone can be a tailor, a tailor only sews buttons. He’s a cutter. The whole hour and 45-minute movie takes place in one spot, the cutter’s shop. So not a whole lot of action, so the movie has to rely on one thing, it’s writing. If it doesn’t have strong writing it would be unbearable, because it only takes place in one spot, it’s almost all dialogue. This one is brilliantly written. It keeps you guessing the entire time with twists and turns, and after the 20 minute mark it will have you hanging on the edge of your seat. It has a real “The Usual Suspects” feel to it where the answer is in front of you the whole time but you don’t realize it. For the writing alone I give it a solid 9/10. If you didn’t catch it in theaters, it’s streaming exclusively right now on Peacock.