iTunes Exclusive Episode Sorry To Bother You
Rob and Don Ford review Boots Riley's directorial debut Sorry to Bother You, starring Lakeith Stanfield. The film follows Cassius Green, a telemarketer in an alternate present-day Oakland who discovers success by adopting a white voice. While the first hour offers solid comedy and social commentary, the second half devolves into bizarre territory that Don describes as an X-Men meets Mr. Ed mashup, ultimately derailing the film's narrative coherence.
About this episode
Key takeaways
- The white voice dubbing becomes increasingly noticeable and distracting, reminiscent of poorly dubbed martial arts films
- The film's shift into the second half with the WorryFree corporation storyline becomes confusing and veers into extreme alternate universe territory
- First hour is decent but the final 45 minutes lose the plot and fail to justify the artistic direction
- Film contains nudity, sexual scenes, scary scenes, and adult comedy—not appropriate for children
Q&A
Would Don watch Sorry to Bother You again?
No. He would only recommend the first hour as a matinee, but the final 45 minutes make him unwilling to rewatch.
What does Don think happened creatively with the script?
He believes the film's weirdness got away from director/writer Boots Riley rather than being intentional shock value.
How do the performances rank?
Stanfield and Thompson are solid actors doing good work. Army Hammer stands out as a CEO drunk off money, though even strong performances cannot salvage the confusing narrative.
Read Transcript
from That's us! I see me tomorrow! Greetings Empire members and members and or members!
Come on! Oh right already, calm down. If you're hearing the sound of my voice right now means the following conditions have been met.
At least once in your life you've checked out the Clubhouse Podcast live every Sunday 9-7 Eastern for Pacific, or you subscribe to our show and your favorite podcast because it's time for another… I, Tunes, Explosive! We're doing this one kind of in advance, so you just have to look for the item description to see which number it is. It's going to be real close to a milestone.
This would probably be 399 if we do the math right. So we'll just have to see how it all works out. Welcome!
My name is Rob, I'm the executive producer of the Clubhouse Podcast, and I really hope that we find you in a good mood. But I'm not alone, sitting in the co-host chair, is a dude that if he wasn't here, I wouldn't have much to talk about because he saw this movie and I didn't. We had to split duty that night.
You may know him as Fondango, but his mama named him Don Ford, I'm going to call him Don Ford. Welcome, sir. See, I'm never alone and I already got always have somebody I could talk to, like my imaginary friend, Rufus.
He's here always. Try the wheel. Before we do one of these things, it is to review something and this is no different.
Boots Riley directs his very first feature film with Likith Stanfield, and it is called Sorry to bother you. For us at this whole thing? Yes, sir.
You have to think Julie and Josh and your band Slifox, Xeniny, Xeniny, Xeniny, Xeniny. We love our vendors so much, they take care of us, they let us see movies ahead of time so we can talk to you guys about them and you can make the best possible decision for your entertainment dollar. There's a lot going on here.
So I'm just going to give you the IMDB description of this film. And an alternate present day version of Oakland, telemarketer, caches green, discovers a magical key to professional success, prompting him into a macabre universe. This runs about an hour 45.
The previously mentioned Likith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, whom a big fan of his in this Omari Hardwick, which is a name I haven't heard in a long time, Terry Crews, Danny Glover, Steven Yen, Army Hammer, David Cross, Patton Oswald, Forest Whitaker, are you kidding me? Over 60 scenes for this film shot in 21 days, really. Very tight schedule, and a good chunk of it filmed in California.
There's been a lot of buzz around this film. Don, you saw it. Let's just dive right in.
All right. So let's get going on this. This is going to be fun.
Yes, the description is the political fast one two liner about this film. Is that because there's a lot going on here? Yeah, you could say that.
And there's two accents the best way to put it. Now, the first act is the alternate universe present day where you got Stanfield playing Cassius Green. Okay.
He's kind of down. It's not my calling Green, not my calling. He's kind of down his, you know, he finally gets a job with this telemarketer thing and lies his way in, which is, presses the boss to get the job, okay?
And he's living in the garage of his uncle, which is on the trailer. I'm not giving anything away. And so he finally gets a job living with his girlfriend and he starts working at this telemarketing company.
Sit next to him for a few days is Danny Glover's character who kind of takes him under his wing and says it goes by Langston. At any point does Danny Glover say, put him out, no, okay. But he kind of gives him, puts him under the wing a little bit and says start using that white voice.
And he kind of explained it like, you know, you're not, he wants him to change who he is in order to do better at his job. Yeah. Okay.
I think about you, the white man, you're not just the black man calling, that kind of thing. So what happens then in the film is, you see on trailers, he gets like a white voice. Hello, Mr.
Haine, you know, it makes him a success overnight, basically. Okay. He starts selling.
He's going through the rough. The bosses are happy. That kind of thing.
Yeah. Okay. And I understand the film.
You don't get. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay. So I'm going to make sure.
But the film is kind of that weird RC kind of that clockwork orange kind of weird alternate universe. Okay. Okay.
Is the best way to kind of describe it. In the first half of the film, first hour, I kind of enjoyed it. You run the hour 45.
Yeah. But I still, I could go into an open mind and it kind of had some good comedy. Now the thing I got annoying on that white voices, you could tell it was dubbed over.
It got to the point, which I put my written video, www dot the clubhousepodcast.com. That's our website that it got kind of annoying to the point of, do you remember those old martial arts films we watched when we were kids or they're badly dubbed? Yes.
You want to fight? Yeah. Fight me.
How you know that's not their voice and everything. It got a little annoying to me. Still, it's a little comedy.
So first part of the film, and it's okay. I might recommend it as a rental or a, or a matinee, something like that. You know, my mind's not made up yet.
Then it gets to the point where he gets the promotion. He goes up to the big room and in the big room, he's, he starts selling for a company called worry free. Now worry free is this company that you live with them.
They give you room and board, but you work. You're just this kind of, you know, slave to the grind kind of thing. And it's kind of slavery.
Now there's the revolts in the, in the world about it. And then it gets weird. Is it getting weird?
Yeah, it gets really weird at that point. That's where the film goes. Boom.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Yeah. Okay, fair enough. And that's where it really starts to fail because I know it's an artsy film, but it gets to the point where the storyline gets so weird that the best way to describe it being spoiler free is they tried to do a mix of the X-Men meets Mr.
Ed. And it winds up. A big fail.
Yeah. Okay. Fair enough.
The description says propelling him into a macabre universe, that part is an understatement beyond belief. Okay, fair enough. Big time.
Fair enough. This gets so weird. It's like, what are we watching?
Okay, so let me, let me give you a couple of options. Did you feel like this? No.
Or did you feel like this? No, it's just kind of like, can someone explain what's going on here? I'm trying to follow this, but this doesn't make sense and it's starting to scare me because it's kind of getting really weird here.
Okay. That's the best way to describe it. Talking to a lot of fellow other critics who saw this.
To like this? What? Yeah, okay, fair enough.
What? Okay. Yeah.
And he ever heard me a few times in the show and passed go, what? Okay. That's the, I'm like, what?
Even the fantastic thing fourth was with me. And she was sitting in, she's kind of like, we're looking at each other and going, what in the heck is going on with this thing? Fellow critics say the same thing.
First half is pretty good, but then it just gets so weird with the storyline. And I would love to spoil it because this isn't, I'm not going to. But how they go in this different, yeah, they go in this different trail of what in a heck is going on here with this alternate, I know it's alternate, but this is like extreme alternate.
Now. So do you feel that it was just, I mean, because boots also wrote the script. Yeah.
Do you felt like he was going for some type of shock value or did you feel like maybe it got away from him? It got away from him. Okay.
Best way to describe it. Fair enough. Stanford does good.
Um, he's like, he's a good actor. Yeah. Fowler does good as his like cohort kind of thing.
Glovers in there for a few scenes, but he plays the old man, you know, who's aged and kind of plays that like that Christmas film he just did recently. Well, I forgot the name of it, but he plays the guy that you kind of know and expect. Now, I got to give it to army hammer.
You remember him from 12 years in the social network. He was in the lone ranger. 12 years as a slave, he played that slave owner.
He had a different attitude than that guy. He wasn't caring. He plays a CEO who's drunk off money.
And how they try to make the script of saying this cannot even happen in an alternate universe of saying what's going on with this. Okay. It just got too weird.
I was just like, at the last 45 minutes, I'm just like, okay, I'm done. I'm done. Do you think this maybe would have been better as like sketch comedy that a whole film?
Yeah. I mean, the first half was really good. I mean, it wasn't a bombshell and it wasn't the greatest film ever, but it was, I understand what they're doing with it.
It had some good points and then here's a guy trying to move up against the big world and now he's trying to sell for the evil evil corporation. But what the evil corporation does with the Mr. Ed meets X-Men.
I don't know. Okay. I don't know.
It just lost me. And then how they say what happens in society after it's when it's kind of where it gets out, that gets real weird too. Okay.
Leave it at that. Anything else you want to cover before we get to the filing analysis? Leave your kids at home in this one.
There is nudity. There's sexual scenes in this thing. Some adult comedy on this.
Some scary scenes. So don't take the kids in this one because you'll have a lot of explain to do on this one. That's unfortunate.
Yeah. The way we do the filing analysis on this show, we're not going to give you thumbs up, thumbs down, we're not going to give you a letter grades, numbers, telephones, anything like that. I'm going to ask Don up to two questions.
Question number one is would he see this film again? If the answer is no, then we're done here. But if the answer is yes, then the follow up question is going to be how far is he willing to go to see it?
We go from top to bottom of the best. Here's how we go. Full price in a theater.
Down to a Twilight show. Down to a matinee. Down to early morning on a weekend.
Down to second run at the dollar theater. Down to leaving your house to get it from red box. Down to streaming on Netflix.
Down to cable. Don, would you see this again? It depends.
Just the first hour and recommended it as a matinee. But after that last 45 minutes, it's a no. He says no.
I will not watch this again. All right. Yeah.
I mean, what else do you need to say? It's Boots Riley directing sorry to bother you. For the end of the soul thing?
Yes, sir. Josh and Julie and everybody at Slifox were the invite. Zining, zining, zining, zining.
We love our vendors so much. They're so much better to buy something they have to be. They want to see movies ahead of time.
So we can talk to you guys about them and you can make the best possible decisions for your entertainment dollars. That being said, let's do the plugs. Visit our website where you can find Don's written review for this film.
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Brittany Palmer probably could have helped us. I'm just saying.