This smooth operator will bring a smile to your dial
BOOTS Riley’s feature debut is a wild satire set in Oakland, California, which takes broad aim, not so much scattergun as blunderbuss, at race, class, capitalism and much besides.
It starts promisingly and becomes wackily incoherent, but the very least you can say about it is that it’s not short of ideas.
Our hero is young African-American Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield), known
Sorry To Bother You (16) Verdict: Incoherent satire
as Cash. He struggles in a new job in telesales until the old guy in the Both alongside him (Danny Glover) advises him to talk ‘white’.
Suddenly, he makes sale after sale, and
ob in tele-
oth along-
ses him to
r sale, and gets a series of lavish promotions. This brings him to the notice of a slick tycoon called Steve Lift (Armie Hammer), who runs a sinister ‘lifestyle’ corporation called WorryFree.
In fact, Cash has plenty to worry about, since his rise up the corporate ladder has alienated him from his lover (Tessa Thompson) and many friends.
Made for a relative pittance, Sorry To Bother You has already been a modest commercial hit in the US and is being hailed by some there as a comic masterpiece.
However, it’s very far from that, unless you like your comedy bewilderingly zany.
At times, it literally loses the plot. Nevertheless, it has heart, and energy, and laughs.