Delayed Reaction: Sorry to Bother You

The Pitch: Get this. One of the guys from Atlanta stars in an absurdist comedy. Hard to believe, right?

A low-level telemarketer works his way up the corporate ladder until he discovers horrible, weird secrets at the top.

There's a lot to like about this movie. Lakeith Stanfield, as Atlanta has already taught me, is a great talent. He has a knack for observation. If you put him in the middle of a bizarre situation, he knows exactly how to take it all in. When he does react, his delivery is mellow and easy. He's perfect for an absurd movie like this. The cast overall is eclectic in a good way. Armie Hammer is almost too obvious as a cocky chief-of-business. Tessa Thompson eats up her chance to be an experimental artist with a rebellious streak. Getting the likes of David Cross, Patton Oswalt, and Lily James for the "white people voices" make me wonder if Boots Riley picked them by typing "typical white people" into Google*.

*For the record, I did that search and Elizabeth Warren comes up. I don't know what to do with that.

This is a loaded movie. Loaded with both comedy and messages. When putting it together, I imagine Boots Riley finishing a draft of the script, then finding a Post It note he wrote  with "TV show called I Got The Shit Kicked Out of Me", then going back and looking for a place to insert it not the screenplay. It's a scattered movie with a lot on its mind. I love the ambition of it and the crazy directions it goes in.

But I didn't care for the movie all that much. That's pretty consistent with my tastes too. I have trouble with movies built on extreme or absurd metaphors. Network is probably the most beloved classic movie that I hate. I wasn't a fan of Brazil either. I even rewatched God Bless America - which I loved not that long ago - recently and found that really tiresome. Idiocracy I hated originally. I still only like it for a couple jokes in it, not the movie as a whole. I like my metaphors subtle and clever, I guess. And I balk at social commentary. I always get the feeling that the filmmaker is talking down to me. Now that I think of it, that's exactly what annoys me with The Purge too. I didn't go into writing this Reaction with this realization in mind. I'm only putting it together now. I should look more into that.

So, yeah. While I appreciate the imagination of the movie and the performances in it, I think its message is all over the place and makes its points clumsily. Boots Riley is a first time filmmaker and screenwriter, and it shows. It's an encouraging start, and I'm curious to see what he comes up with when he isn't working through 40 years of backlogged ideas. 

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend