“Represent yourself in the best way, man.”

I love me a good directorial debut and what Juel Taylor has put together with 2023’s They Cloned Tyrone is not only a good directorial debut, it’s a great one. John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, and Teyonah Parris steal the show in this 70’s flavored, science-fiction, Blaxploitation satire that tries its best to get in its own way at times, but still comes out as the film Jordan Peele thinks he keeps making.

When Fontaine, a local drug dealer, makes a move to protect his territory, the consequences that follow open a world of questions. Sometimes what’s under your feet is a little more than just earth.

This is a movie that gets a lot of marks for style, smarts, awareness, and clever self-derision… but not so many for originality. What’s interesting about that comment, however, is that it also largely doesn’t matter. I’ve watched a few movies this year that actually seem to benefit from having more “classical”, “obvious”, or “transparent” plots. Sometimes just being engrossed in the execution of what you already know is coming can be half the fun… and that’s where They Cloned Tyrone finds itself nicely seated directly between Jordan Peele’s Us and Alexandre Aja’s single location sci-fi thriller, Oxygen. If you’ve seen either or both of those films, you’ll recognize nearly every plot point in Tyrone… but that isn’t a complaint. If anything, I think it’s a strength.

They Cloned Tyrone is a satire that doesn’t forget storytelling matters [somewhere I think the genre often goes very, very awry]. It’s a satire that looks at things that are very real and very deeply felt and finds a way to make them approachable, visible, and tangible without ever making them silly… which is a great feat considering that this movie is kind of just a serious take on Zoolander and genuinely very funny — no small thanks to the absolutely excellent chemistry of its lead performers. While I’m new to Teyonah Parris, I’m a longtime fan of both Boyega and Foxx, and putting them together onscreen is a move of absolute brilliance. This film has an incredibly strong sense of style that carries its fairly mundane plot forward with a confidence that few others can manage. From it’s 70’s visual flair that clashes with the use of cellphones and discussions of crypto, to the 80’s sci-fi lighting of its more techy scenes that should butt heads with both it’s modern soundtrack and classically heavy funk beats, They Cloned Tyrone knows what it is and that self-awareness does a lot to make this movie worth your time.

It’s not all brilliant, unfortunately, and you have to be in for Tyrone’s deeper plots and cultural relevance to really walk away from this one moved. Though I mention that it is quite funny above, it also is a little boring as a straight up-and-down entertainment piece. If you’re not interested in having fun with Boyega and Foxx taking turns in the spotlight and you’re not interested in the dark reflections of the plot… They Cloned Tyrone is sort of bland. Though things like subtle references to Black Dynamite pepper the film’s runtime, at just over 2-hours long this story could have been a little more snappy. It doesn’t overstay its welcome perse, but it does ride that line.

Tyrone also falls into the quagmire of insisting that the audience understand its narrative. There are no less than three scenes in the film where a villain-type sits the characters down and talks out their entire plan. This works in certain films better than others, but is generally a kind of uninspired way to tell your story. Not everything needs to be spelled out for an audience, it’s ok to trust them to miss certain pieces or participles of your plot. In fact, film is often strongest when it trusts the audience to be invested enough to string lines of thought together. I’m not saying this needed to be some Christopher Nolan nonsense or a clone of The Lighthouse, just that it didn’t need to serve so many tidy meals to the viewer. In these moments I reminded myself that this is a directorial debut, and that smoothed my hackles well enough.

All said and done, They Cloned Tyrone is an incredibly smart satire that comments on cycles of violence, repression, and control in a way that would cause most other films to lose their way. Though it leaves something to be desired in some of its delivery, the overall execution and flair of the world created here is stunning in its authenticity and confidence and I look forward to following director Juel Taylor wherever they go next.

“There it is again, that slippery slope of recidivism.”