Earlier today, I watched the comedy thriller Vengeance at AMC theaters.
This film, written and directed by B.J. Novak (of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and the hit NBC TV series The Office), was one of the wittiest movies I've seen on the big screen this year!
Vengeance is about a New York writer named Ben Manalowitz (Novak) who reluctantly travels to Texas to attend the funeral of a girl he once dated, and finds himself in the middle of a plot to seek retribution against the person who supposedly took this girl's life. Manalowitz wanted to make a podcast documenting this quest to seek justice in a nondescript Texas town, only to get more than he bargained for as he interviewed one potential suspect after another who may have been involved in this girl's murder.
This would be an extremely-long review if I had to talk about all of the memorable dialogue spouted in Vengeance...most of them, interestingly, by Ashton Kutcher's character Quentin Sellers.
One interesting scene was between Manalowitz and Sellers—a music producer whose recording studio was oddly located in the middle of the Texas desert. The reason for this was eloquently stated by Sellers: Lots of people who live in these rural areas are so intelligent that they're forced to focus their insightful thoughts into conspiracy theories that run rampant in these parts of America.
Or in Sellers words: These folks are "bright creative lights with nowhere to channel their energy."
Towards the end of the film, Manalowitz and Sellers have another philosphical conversation...with Quentin stating that people are nothing more than "translations of the recordings in our lives." In other words, we tend to fall in love with another person based on how they portrayed themselves on social media or simple photos and videos. But if we talked to them in person, chances are we won't be as impressed as we would be staring at a digital or printed image of them instead. Deep.
And there's this simple line that resonates throughout the film: "Heart sees heart."
As stated earlier, this would be a very long entry if I mentioned additional memorable quotes from this comedy thriller, but Vengeance focuses on other timely issues— Namely, the incompetence of Texas police officers and politicians. Considering the way that Texas law enforcement and government are portrayed in this movie (vengeance wouldn't need to be sought if these folks did their jobs right), its no wonder why Vengeance was filmed in New Mexico and not the Lone Star State itself!
Happy Saturday.
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