“Vengeance” is such an impressive directorial debut that you don’t mind when B.J. Novak occasionally swings and misses.
In fact, Novak — familiar to legions of fans of “The Office” as the actor who portrayed temp-turned-paper company executive Ryan Howard — generally takes such big swings with this clever, commentary-filled black comedy that you’re amazed he so rarely strikes out.
Written and directed by Novak, “Vengeance” also sees the actor in the lead role of Ben Manalowtiz, a Brooklyn, New York, intellectual who writes for The New Yorker but aspires to be the next great podcast host.
“Hey,” friend Eloise (Issa Rae of “Insecure”), herself a high-powered audio producer, tells him, “not every white guy in New York has to have a podcast.”
In his personal life, Ben is engaging in regular meaningless hookups — we meet him and a friend, John (music star John Mayer) hanging out atop Soho House and chopping it up about how they label the girls in their phones’ address books, as well as how they’re not afraid of commitment or intimacy. (John notes he’s only afraid of needing to get out of a commitment he’s made and that he’s intimate with lots of people. He also wonders what it would be like to stop seeing six or seven women and to date two or three seriously.)
After a night with a young woman Ben whom he initially confuses with another who’s in “the book world,” he gets a strange call. The man on the other end of the line is Ty Shaw (Boyd Holbrook), who has terrible news: Ty’s sister Abilene (Lio Tipton) — Ben’s “girlfriend” — has died.
Ben, of course, isn’t immediately clear on who exactly Abilene is, while Ty presses on about Ben making arrangements to attend her funeral — in Texas. During the humorous exchange, when Ben says he’ll be there “in spirit,” Ty says that taking Spirit Airlines seems like a fine idea.
So Ben travels to West Texas, to a small town about a three-hour drive from the city of Abilene — and much further from metropolises such as Houston and Dallas, which Ty considers to be something other than real Texas places.
After the funeral, during which Ben manages to conjure something moving to say about a girl he barely remembers but who was telling her family their relationship was serious, Ty confronts him with a revelation and a plan. Although Abilene’s death was ruled to be a drug overdose, he’s sure she was murdered, and he wants Ben to help him avenge her killing.
Ben initially wants nothing to do with all that, of course, and believes the girl’s death to be exactly what it seemed, nothing more. However, he quickly realizes he may have stumbled upon a great story for a podcast, a true-crime tale without killers. He pitches a receptive Eloise on an examination of “a new American reality,” in which economic hardship and addiction lead some to invent or embrace conspiracy theories to explain their lives.
So Ben stays in Texas, sleeping in Abilene’s room and spending time with Ty and the rest of his family: mother Sharon (J. Smith-Cameron, “Succession”); sisters Paris (Isabella Amara, “Spider-Man: Homecoming”) and Kansas City (Dove Cameron, “Schmigadoon!”); a younger brother somehow affectionately referred to as “El Stupido” (newcomer Eli Brickel): and Granny Carole (a funny Louanne Stephens, “Friday Night Lights”). He learns about the multiple guns this “not a gun family” possesses and why they’d always choose Whataburger over other provider of fast food.
As he looks into Abilene’s past, he encounters others close to her, the most notable of which is enigmatic music producer Quentin Sellers (Ashton Kutcher, “Jobs”), who worked with the late aspiring singer to record some tracks and who tries to open Ben’s eyes to what’s happening below the surface in this part of the country.
Kutcher’s performance is one of the unexpected pleasures of “Vengeance,” the one-time “That ‘70s Show” and “Dude, Where’s My Car” star reaching a borderline-captivating level in multiple scenes with Novak.
Speaking of the lead, Novak — who also wrote on “The Office” and whose film-acting credits include “Inglourious Basterds” and “The Founder” — plays things pretty safe in front of the camera. Although he lands some of the movie’s more subtle laugh lines, he essentially acts as the straight man, allowing those playing the outsized Texas characters around him, including Kentucky native Holbrook (“Logan,” “Gone Girl”), to get the bigger chuckles.
Again, as the movie’s writer and director, Novak misfires here and there. A scene in which Ben embarrasses himself at the rodeo doesn’t ring true in the way other moments in “Vengeance” do, and the conclusion to the film’s central mystery is, perhaps, a bit too ambitious. If nothing else, Novak lets a crucial sequence run too long and spell too much out for the audience.
That said, he accomplishes the tallest order when it comes to a movie like this: tip-toeing the line between making good-natured fun of a group of people — in this case, Texans — and respecting them. The production notes for the movie say Novak took multiple research trips to Texas in the company of Texas Monthly Senior Editor Christian Wallace and that “the people of Texas blew my mind.”
There’s an admirable and surprising sweetness mixed in with the requisite darkness of a black comedy.
“Vengeance” may not quite blow your mind — it may even frustrate you occasionally — but Novak’s big, Texas-sized swing largely connects.
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‘VENGEANCE’
3 stars (out of 4)
MPAA rating: R (for language and brief violence)
Running time: 1:34
How to watch: In theaters Friday
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