They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

Having debuted on Netflix with almost no notice, They Cloned Tyrone might be the most original and technically accomplished movie released last summer on any streaming service. A fascinating blend of genres, the film uses mystery, comedy, and science fiction to approach a pseudo-Blaxploitation crime caper. As we follow the three immensely likable leads on a convoluted plot that keeps us guessing, we become complicit in their antics until we become as eager as they to stop the madness and escape. It's the sort of aggressively topical material that could easily have felt angry or scary (like Get Out, to which this surely compares) but is entertained by itself enough that we don't feel the brunt of its message without also feeling the pleasure of its originality. In fact, tonally and generically, I'd compare this film to Sorry to Bother You, which I now need to rewatch in tandem.

Set in a gritty but average suburban neighborhood named The Glen, the story concerns Fontaine (John Boyega), a drug dealer with shiny gold grills, who is shot and killed while collecting from local pimp Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx). When he awakens, totally fine, the next day, sex worker Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris) hops on the case like Nancy Drew -- whose stories shaped her childhood -- and the three embark on an investigation into the demimonde of their hometown. There is indeed a conspiracy afoot, one partly spoiled by the film's odd title, but I won't share more details here because it's just too fun and interesting to experience firsthand. Suffice it to say that, in addition to the films I've already referenced, this one metafictionalizes Blaxploitation and "urban crime dramas" in a similar way to what Scream and Cabin in the Woods, among others, did for slashers and supernatural horror.

More importantly -- and, honestly, the primary reason I caught onto this approach -- given the recent release of American Fiction, it feels like another significant point in the tapestry of mainstream art by Black artists for Black audiences. There are so many inside jokes, culturally-specific jargon, and storied references that I probably only caught a small fraction of them. But, given the star power of the three leads (who are all utterly magnificent here), I recognized almost immediately their dedicated work in crafting knowingly stereotypical characters, perhaps because I was so bewildered in the film's first act. It's all very grainy, shot beautifully but often (I think intentionally) unclearly by cinematographer Ken Seng, riddled with tactile grime and grit that made me think of Uncut Gems among other films; as I detest that film, I was put off early in this screening. But once the trio discovers an elevator to unknown lower levels of a drug house, things get radically more interesting for a viewer like me.

Which is probably the point, right? Much like in American Fiction, it seems likely that writer and director Juel Taylor wants us to think of his characters as criminals and thugs at first. They're so broadly written and performed with thick accents and sometimes indiscernible dialogue that a white person might think they're foreign or "less than." Our perspective is mostly limited to that of Fontaine, who is immediately painted in pathological terms, with the memory of his deceased brother haunting him and his distant/absent mother only heard through a closed door before he goes to collect drug money from his customers. Boyega's more stoic character is balanced by a high-energy Parris and a funny but never obnoxious Foxx; the three mesh perfectly and carry the film as a dream team, helped by a screenplay that honors the trio's chemistry.

Its rushed conclusion, while more than a bit shocking and funny, felt forced to me, especially once the big bad guy reveals himself and the story rushes to conclude itself. I would have liked more time spent on the respective places of our trio in their community, the same community they spend the film working so hard to protect and save (liberate?). Given the subject matter -- cloning is the only hint you'll get from me -- I'd have also liked more discussion or imagery regarding the roles they've all chosen to play (or been forced to play) in their community, as manipulative powers at hand are conspiring to indeed predetermine the lives of Black people in The Glen. At least for a time. At least until a deeply insidious form of assimilation becomes the standard for their 'hood.