Joel Hirst

I rarely write movie reviews; there are so few that deserve it. Especially modern movies that are in essence political. Movies don’t stay with us like books do; but I have a feeling that this one will. “Vengeance” is part of the “Enlightened New York liberal makes a journey to fly-over country to try and understand what is wrong with those people” genre. We all read the articles and listened to some of the podcasts after Trump won in 2016; lots of soul-searching articles about people — who knew they were superior — nevertheless getting in their armored cars and making the dangerous trek to Texas or Oklahoma as a condescension that there was something they might not understand. It was all mildly off-putting; none of it was genuine – none of it came from a place of anything other than contempt. I stumbled across “Vengeance” last night, and started streaming it without really knowing what it was about and was immediately concerned. I was sure it was gonna be dripping with politics and violent against the “red-state-rubes”. What I watched blew my socks off. What I had found was a comedy, a satire of tremendous power that was seeking in an intelligent, sophisticated and compassionate way to peel back the stereotypes laid by each side against the other, discovering that at the base of them all they are both real and tragic and comic. Both deeply American. America is living through such a moment of national angst – we are not managing our empire well; our “Pax Americana” which ended with the Russian invasion of Ukraine (or maybe it actually ended with the invasion of Iraq — or the great recession). The cities have fared better in America’s unraveling; mainly because they are closer to the printing-presses of the money; and the people’s proximity to each other (and the rich) is harder for the powerful to ignore. Cities are also more liberal; mostly because the “moral hazard” that the cities provide is more conducive to the reckless libertarian liberalism that the hard left wants to propagate as “normal” — along with the required anonymity and break from what they would say are the oppressive confines of conformity required to live in a rural area. Cities have faired better, economically, but the small town still resonates. The plot of this movie is about a party-going podcaster who is forced to go and attend the funeral of a one-night-stand from Texas who died of an overdose of fentanyl while back home. He decides to turn the trip into a series of episodes; meaning to discover “what is wrong with these people” and in the end ends up discovering what is wrong with himself. But it’s not one-sided — there’s plenty to criticize in Texas as well. I won’t give away the twists; I will say that the character development was remarkable and Ashton Kutcher (who I don’t like) was brilliant. This is THE movie about America during the age of Trump. www.joelhirst.blog