Sorry To Bother You!

I like filmmakers who take risks. Man does Boots Riley take risks in his film directing debut, Sorry To Bother You.This is a director who has hit the big leagues swinging away, stealing bases, and throwing knuckleballs. Unfortunately, he's getting caught stealing as many times as he succeeds, he's a .250 hitter, and his knuckleballs are getting jacked.

The movie stars LaKeith Stanfield as Cassius Green (ok we get it, greed is bad), a young man trying to make it in Oakland. He gets hired as a telemarketer for a shady firm selling who knows what. When old pro Danny Glover (yes he does say he's too old for this shit) advises Cash to use "your white voice, not Will Smith white... talk like all your bills are paid" in order to succeed, Cash finds his success. Did I mention the goal of these telemarketers is to get upstairs to become a "power caller" with their own elevator and riches they can only dream of?

Yes, Cash does get upstairs because why wouldnt he so he wrestle with the moral dilemma of accepting ill gotten riches and selling out or standing up to evil. Evil is WorryFree, a gigantic do all corporation run by Steve Lift (Armie Hammer) a coke snorting gun toting asshole who literally enslaves people to work for him. Cash is chosen as WorryFree's Martin Luther King to go undercover and keep tabs on the new type of workforce developed by scientists, Dr. Moreaus if you will.

And yep, this is where this movie jumps the rails, goes off into the canyon and bursts into flames killing everybody onboard. The last 30 minutes of this weird ass movie are just so utterly offputting. You may love it, think its brilliant, but I beg to differ because I'm old and have seen all this greed is bad, science is dangerous, corporations are soulless, and racism is bad stuff many many times.

Hey its not this movie is bad. I actually enjoyed much of it, especially a scene where Cassius is told to rap for the young white people, but it rang in my head Ive seen this before in the underrated CB4. Terry Crews is great in his two scenes (more Terry please), Tessa Thompson is superb as artsy fartsy Detroit. But this is LaKeith Stanfields movie. His hunched over rather quiet Cassius is a freakin star. He's got it. His character is just a dude. His clashes with his friends, Detroit, and the union organizers are classic Im just a guy moments. For the first time in his life, he's important and though his importance may be fueled by evil exploitation and what turns out to be immoral madness, he cant give up that feeling. Until he has to.

Sorry To Bother You is a symptom of movies like this. They appeal to young people who have never seen this type of satire before. But us ancients have seen the Dr Strangeloves and the Networks and Idiocracy and the science fiction movies of the 50's and even the Twilight Zones. This one really doesnt have anything new for us. So if you're young, enjoy. Then go back and watch the ones that inspired this.

Now get off my lawn.