Social Icons

Sorry To Bother You (2018)


Sorry To Bother You (2018)



4/10



Starring
Lakeith Stanfield
Tessa Thompson
Jermaine Fowler


Directed Boots Riley



Sorry to Bother You starts off by presenting itself as a movie trying to attack how much we rely on ignorance about what wealthy companies do with our freedom. It also critiques the way capitalism consumes the existence of those who aren’t in the top one percent. Finally, the movie tries to address racial discrepancies in how people are treated based on how they sound.

All of the above makes it seem like you’re about to watch a movie with a strong political statement, masked with enough comedy to keep you glued. I have to apologize to those who found this movie entertaining and its message worth experiencing because, to me, this movie was crap.

The acting didn’t jump out at you. Our lead, Cassius (Lakeith Stanfield), is looking for a job in an economy that seems to have drained the whole society. He lives in his uncle’s garage and is barely getting by. He lands a job in telemarketing and tries to make as many sales as possible to earn enough commission to build a life.

On TV, there’s a constant ad for a company offering people free food, accommodation, and no utility bills—if they’re willing to sign their lives away. The catch? You’ll live in a dormitory-like setting with no privacy.

Cassius considers this but chooses not to be trapped. At work, his colleagues are organizing to push back against the company, but instead of joining them, he stabs his friends in the back. He takes a promotion due to his outstanding performance, choosing money over loyalty.

Things start to unravel quickly. He loses his girlfriend and soon discovers the cruel intentions of the company offering a “free life.” He then realizes who he’s really working for.

If you still choose to see this movie, I wish you luck because I think the message has been better extracted here in this review.

To me, it felt like a short film stretched over too many reels. The message could have been delivered in 15 minutes instead of the over-an-hour-and-a-half runtime they used to convey it. People are already aware of these issues and, frankly, don’t care.

Yes, we know what Facebook is doing with our personal data, but we still don’t care. We continue to post on social media despite all the negative things we’ve heard.

Fake news is spreading, and we’ve become workhorses for these companies. We don’t get paid for the money we help them make but are fed anxiety and fleeting pleasures instead.

Yes, everyone is aware of the crimes committed by these tech giants, but we don’t care because we’re hooked. We’re hooked, and this movie kept losing itself in the obscure reality of things, failing to entertain even a little.


0 comments:

Post a Comment

Disclaimer

All images featured on this site are the property of their respective copyright owners. They are used solely for illustrative and commentary purposes under fair use principles. This site is a personal blog, unaffiliated with or endorsed by any copyright holders. If you are the copyright owner of an image featured here and wish to have it removed, please contact me directly, and I will address your request promptly.