Vengeance

Amazingly well-done. Film gets especially good in the last 20%, super rare!

When "Ben Manalowitz" (auteur B J Novak) gets a phone call, he leaves his New York home to travel to a remote desert community to find out what happened to a girl he had once hooked up with. Upon arrival he realises that this could be the subject for a serious podcast and so sets out to find her killer - at the behest of her brother "Ty" (Boyd Holbrook) - and simultaneously to offer an analysis of just how these folks live their lives - such a contrast to the style of fast-paced urban dwelling he is used to, and manna from heaven to his producer "Eloise" (Issa Rae). The storyline itself is rather procedural, but there is a decent degree of humour in this film - especially starting with the man-to-man chat at the top of the film which shows neither in a particularly good light. Thereafter some sparingly entertaining contributions from Ashton Kutcher help ginger this along in a sort of film noir style. The quirkiness of the townsfolk's real existence - centred largely around a burger bar; the characterful personalities and an equally effective score from Finneas O'Connell all help to generate a decently paced and quite compelling mystery that I found myself drawn into more than I was expecting. Novak isn't a great actor, but the writing - ultimately offering us an opportunity to evaluate his character and his flaws as much as of anyone else; the developing scenarios and the whole sense of mischief here do most of the heavy lifting allowing us to enjoy the concept without necessarily having to appreciate the acting scene by scene. I really did rather like the ending too.