Review of Sorry to Bother You (2018) by Martin D G — 02 Aug 2018

Just as I think I have seen the worst movie of the year another one comes along and this was recommended (but then I forgot he liked "Dumb and Dumber").

I was debating between seeing "Blindspotting" and "Sorry to Bother You" but Allen (heck, I might as well blame him, too) wanted to see a comedy so Sorry it was.

"Sorry to Bother You" is being 'sold' as a comedy/satire with Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield) an African-American who lives in his Uncle's (Terry Crews) garage converted into a studio where the garage door opens when he is making love to his girlfriend Detroit, (Tessa Thompson) who as an artist is all over the place including 'performance art', wearing outsize earrings with a message, eye makeup with a 'tear' constantly changing and hair multitude colors.

The first 15 minutes is entertaining presenting the set up of Cassius getting a telemarketing job and being advised by a cubicle neighbor (Danny Glover) to use a 'white voice' (dubbed by David Cross) and, almost immediately, becomes a huge success. At this point the movie becomes like Detroit's art, all over the place, no particular point of view, throwing whatever at the screen hoping something sticks.

The director and screenwriter, Boots Riley, presents the most popular show on TV called "I Got The S*it Kicked Out Of Me" which is pure violence, there is a company called Worry Free that is experimenting turning employees into half horses, half men (nothing about women but promising the male workers a 'horse's penis'), run by Armie Hammer who introduces the world of Slavery, plus telemarketers going on strike lead by Steven Yeun calling the group Left Eye. There is a 'joke' of people being slammed in the head with a Cola that, once introduced, and not being funny going on and on which is hard to do in a movie that runs a 105 minutes.

Funny? Not really except for that garage door opening scene. Satire? So scattered and/or subtle it gets lost.

Sorry, unless you want to be bored out of your mind don't go to see "Sorry to Bother You".