Movie Review: They Cloned Tyrone (R – 122 minutes)

 I wish I had seen this in a theater with a full audience.

They Cloned Tyrone is a gem of a flick that delivers on what it promises.  The first 20 minutes or so set up what feels like white-generated black stereotypes – entirely on purpose so that the movie can shift into its sci-fi story.  If you combined Sorry to Bother You, Black Dynamite, Get Out, and Undercover Brother, you may get close to They Cloned Tyrone. 

Clearly this movie is not trying to hide its sci-fi premise (it is right there in the title) but as the characters slowly learn what is going on around them, the action and comedy both ramp up.  Fontaine is a drug dealer working in The Glenn, getting tips from young Junebug and offering some of his 40 to old Frog.  He checks in on his mother daily, but rarely sees her, and one day while visiting Slick Charles – one of his distributors – he is shot and killed? by rival dealer Isaac.  This entire section of the movie plays into all the stereotypes: dress, music, behavior, slang, etc.  Even the color quality feels more like a 70s Blaxploitation movie. 

Fontaine surprisingly wakes up the next day and goes about his business, but Slick Charles and one of Charles’s working ladies, Yo-Yo help him realize what happened to him. Together, the three set out to investigate, try to figure out what is going on, rally their neighborhood, and try to stop it. 

Written and directed by Juel Taylor, I was not sure what to expect from this movie, but my goodness, I enjoyed it.  The beginning is aggressively stereotypical in terms of language and behavior that it is almost off-putting and unpleasant to watch, but that is exactly the point. Once the threesome discover what is going on and hatch their plot to combat it, the movie is funny, action-packed, and deeper than it should be. 

The cast is perfection, and John Boyega continues to be charismatic and entertaining. Even as the despicable Fontaine, he is watchable.  Speaking of watchable, I cannot remember the last time I have enjoyed Jamie Foxx this much. Where Boyega’s Fontaine is angry and grumpy through the whole movie, Foxx’s Charles is the comedy relief.  Teyonah Parris as Yo-Yo rounds out the crew and together the three of them seem to be genuinely having a great time.

David Alan Grier shows up randomly as a character I swear I remember from In Living Color, and Keifer Sutherland plays a villain in a very creepy and dark way.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and maybe because I was not expecting anything, but I cannot recommend it enough – it’s on Netflix and certainly worth a stream!

9 out of 10

Also – the folks behind Black Dynamite have a new one coming out – can’t wait for that either.