Clifton Collins Jr. Archives

Review: ‘After Yang,’ starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Justin H. Min and Haley Lu Richardson

March 4, 2022

by Carla Hay

Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja and Justin H. Min in “After Yang” (Photo courtesy of A24)

Directed by Kogonada

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the sci-fi dramatic film “After Yang” has a racially diverse cast of characters (white, black, Latino and Asian) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After a family’s android malfunctions and appears to be unfixable, the family’s patriarch goes on a quest to find out the origins of this robot.

Culture Audience: “After Yang” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching introspective movies about what life could be like in the future.

Justin H. Min and Haley Lu Richardson in “After Yang” (Photo courtesy of A24)

What happens when a family robot breaks down and apparently can’t be fixed? And what if that robot was such an integral part of this family, the family might be broken too if the robot can no longer be in their lives? Those are the questions posed in the thoughtful sci-fi drama “After Yang,” written and directed by Kogonada. The movie might be too slow-paced for some viewers, but it’s worth viewing for a contemplative story about how the need for emotional connections won’t change, no matter how much technology advances.

“After Yang” opens with a “selfie” family portrait in the home backyard of the Fleming family: Jake (played by Colin Farrell), Jake’s wife Kyra (played by Jodie Turner-Smith), their daughter Mika (played by Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) and their human-looking android Yang (played by Justin H. Min), who operates the camera before getting into the group photo. It seems like a happy family gathering, based on the smiles in the photo, but Jake and Kyra have grown emotionally distant from each other in their marriage.

Mika, who’s about 6 or 7 years old, seems oblivious to the tension in her parents’ relationship. Jake and Kyra adopted Mika as a baby from China. Yang is described as a “techno-sapien.” He was purchased to be a companion to Mika and so he could teach her about Chinese history and culture. Yang, who has a kind and patient personality, has known Mika since she was a baby. Yang is treated like a nanny and a family member.

“After Yang” takes place in an unnamed U.S. city in an unspecified future, when human-looking androids and human clones are fairly common. (“After Yang” was filmed primarily in New York state’s Rockland County.) All of the actors in “After Yang” keep their native accents, so the movie has a very cosmopolitan tone to it. Most of the cast members are American, but Farrell is Irish, Turner-Smith is British, and there are some other non-Americans who are in the cast.

Jake owns a tea shop, while Kyra works at an office job in an unnamed industry. The passion seems to have left their marriage, but Jake and Kyra are not on the verge of splitting up. These two spouses don’t have big arguments, but they just seem to barely tolerate each other.

Through various conversations between Jake and Kyra, viewers find out that her main complaint about him is that she doesn’t think he spends enough time with the family. Kyra tells Jake during one of their tension-filled conversations: “I just want us to be a team, a family.” An early scene in the movie shows Mika and Kyra at home eating dinner. Mika asks where Jake is, and Kyra tells her that he has to work late. However, Kyra puts a positive spin on Jake’s absence by saying that Jake being busy with customers means that his business is doing well.

Jake obliges Kyra’s request to spend more time with family, by participating with Kyra, Mika and Yang in a worldwide virtual dance-off competition that happens once a month. The dance-offs are based on the number of people in each group. For example, groups of four compete against each other, groups of three compete against each other, etc. Because this is a virtual competition, thousands of people can compete at the same time.

In this dance-off, groups go online and dance to the same song and are monitored by judges. The objective is for everyone in the group to dance in sync. Any group that has a member who dances out of sync is eliminated.

The movie’s opening credits play over a memorable montage sequence of the Fleming family and other four-member groups dancing in this contest. Some of the people in the other groups end up being supporting characters in this movie. Despite the Fleming family’s best efforts, someone in their group dances out of sync (Jake gets the blame), and they’re eliminated, but they seemed to have fun bonding over this shared activity.

Not long after the family participated in this dance-off, Yang malfunctions and shuts down. Because his exterior is made of human-like flesh, there’s a limited time to fix him before he will start decomposing. Jake and Kyra have different reactions to Yang’s shutdown. Jake wants to do everything he can to save Yang, because he knows how emotionally attached Mika is to Yang. Kyra is more reluctant to fix Yang, because of the expenses involved and because she thinks that Mika needs to learn about death.

Kyra also gripes to Jake that he should’ve bought Yang as a new android from a company called Brothers and Sisters, which is the main company that has the authority to sell new androids. Instead, Yang was purchased as a used android from a company called Second Siblings, a company that’s considered to be inferior to Brothers and Sisters. The place where Yang was purchased affects the ability to repair him quickly, because Yang’s warranty is with Second Siblings, not with Brothers and Sisters.

The Fleming family has a next-door neighbor named George (played by Clifton Collins Jr.), whom Jake thinks is a little weird and annoying. George notices that Jake is carrying Yang, so Jake tells George that Yang malfunctioned the night before. George mentions to Jake that he has a friend named Russ who does android repairs for a reasonable price. George advises Jake on what to do about Yang: “I wouldn’t take him back to Brothers and Sisters. They’re just going to try to get you to recycle him for a new model.”

When Jake goes to the place where he remembers Second Siblings was located, he’s dismayed to find out that the business has closed, and a fish aquarium store is now in its place. Mika is with him on this trip and is afraid of what will happen to Yang. To placate Mika’s worries, Jake buys her a pet fish from the shop.

Jake then goes to a repair shop called Quick Fix, where a repair consultant named Aaron (played by Brett Dier) tells Jake that he has two options: (1) recycle Yang and get a $1,000 discount toward a new android, or (2) turn Yang’s head and voice box into a virtual assistant, and the family can keep the rest of Yang’s salvaged parts. Jake decides to take neither option.

With Mika growing increasingly anxious about losing Yang, Jake decides to go to George’s friend Russ (played by Ritchie Coster) as a last resort. Russ tells Jake that he needs Jake’s permission to open Yang’s interior core. Opening this interior core is is an illegal thing to do, but Russ insists it’s the only way to figure out how Yang can be fixed. Yang is left at Russ’ repair shop for the time being.

Back at home, Jake and Kyra continue to disagree over what to do about Yang. Kyra also tells Jake: “Yang has been wonderful, and we’d miss him terribly, but we’ve been over-reliant on him. We bought Yang to connect [Mika] to her Chinese heritage, not to raise her.” Jake replies, “Yeah, but we spent a lot of money on Yang.”

Kyra says, “If we can’t fix Yang, we’re not going to buy another sibling for Mika. We can’t afford it anyway.” Kyra also says that she and Jake, not an android, should be responsible for teaching Mika about her Chinese heritage. Jake remains undeterred. His determination to save Yang leads him down unexpected paths and eventually on a quest to find out Yang’s origins.

Along the way, some other people play important roles in this story, including a Museum of Technology curator named Cleo (played by Sarita Choudhury) and a young female clone named Ada (played by Haley Lu Richardson), who has a connection to Yang. It’s enough to say that through a series of circumstances, Jake can access Yang’s memories by putting on special sunglasses. What Jake finds out changes his outlook on many things in life.

“After Yang” takes its time in unpeeling some of the layers in this story. There are several scenes of people staring off into space, as if they’re in deep thought. And although Jake is seen occasionally at work, he doesn’t seem to have any employees at his tea shop. It will make viewers wonder who’s operating Jake’s tea shop while he’s going around investigating the mystery of Yang, while Mika is sometimes along for the ride.

One of the biggest flaws in the movie is how Kyra is such an underdeveloped character. It will be hard for a lot of viewers to emotionally connect to Kyra, who comes across as cold and completely boring. Yang might be a robot, but he has more personality than Kyra does. And for all of Kyra’s complaining about Jake not spending enough time with the family, Jake is the one who ends up spending more time with Mika than Kyra does during the course of this story.

Only when Jake accesses Yang’s memories do viewers get to see a brief glimpse of Jake and Kyra in happier times, when they look like a real married couple. But for the vast majority of “After Yang,” there’s little to no chemistry between Farrell and Turner-Smith as these spouses. Even though they are portraying a married couple drifting apart, there’s nothing in the movie that shows why Jake and Kyra fell in love with each other in the first place.

“After Yang” also could have used more of the story to explore family issues when an adopted child is of a race that’s different from the adoptive parents. The only reference to any realistic challenges of interracial adoptions is a flashback scene where Mika confides in Yang about how some kids at her school told her that Jake and Kyra are not her real parents and asking him what it means to be Asian. Mika knows that she’s adopted, but she still seems a little hurt and confused over people thinking that Jake and Kyra aren’t her “real parents.” Yang then tells Mika about tree grafting as an analogy to adoption. It’s a very trite and simplistic way to deal with this issue.

Later in the movie, Kyra calls Jake while she’s at her job to ask Jake to pick up Mika from school because Mika got into a physical fight with another student. Mika was sent to the school principal’s office over this altercation, but the movie never shows Jake and/or Kyra interacting with anyone at the school about this problem or talking to Mika about it. It would be easy to assume that Mika might have gotten into the fight because of the adoption issue, but the movie never explains how Jake, Krya and Mika tried to resolve this problem.

Tjandrawidjaja is very good in the role of Mika, but her character was basically written to be just a cute and somewhat precocious kid. Instead, “After Yang” puts most of the emphasis on Jake as the person whose thoughts and feelings have the most importance in the story, since he’s the one who’s the most involved with and affected by finding out Yang’s origins. Farrell handles the character of Jake with a lot of care, but some viewers might grow tired of so many people in the movie having pained expressions on their faces without much action happening in the story.

The rest of the supporting cast members are perfectly fine in their roles. Min and Richardson do the best that they can with their Yang and Ada characters in the limited screen time that these characters have. When viewers see the connection between Yang and Ada, it will make a lot of people wish that there could’ve been an entire movie centered on Yang and Ada.

Kogonada brings a futuristic, dream-like style to the flashback sequences of Yang’s memories. These striking visuals are among the best aspects of “After Yang.” If viewers have the patience to watch this movie, the last third is the best and most meaningful part of the film. “After Yang” isn’t a groundbreaking sci-fi movie, but it offers a unique perspective of humanity when human clones and androids that look like humans co-exist with people.

A24 released “After Yang” in select U.S. cinemas on March 4, 2022, the same date that the move premiered on Showtime.

Review: ‘Jockey’ (2021), starring Clifton Collins Jr., Molly Parker and Moises Arias

January 6, 2022

by Carla Hay

Clifton Collins Jr. and Moises Arias in “Jockey” (Photo by Adolpho Veloso/Sony Pictures Classics)

“Jockey” (2021)

Directed by Clint Bentley

Culture Representation: Taking place in Phoenix, the dramatic film “Jockey” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos) representing the working-class middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An aging horse racing jockey has to come to terms with his failing health and his fading career.

Culture Audience: “Jockey” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Clifton Collins Jr. and stories about getting older and the dark side of horse racing.

Molly Parker and Clifton Collins Jr. in “Jockey” (Photo by Adolpho Veloso/Sony Pictures Classics)

“Jockey” is a low-key but effective “slice of life” movie about a middle-aged horseracing jockey who has to face realities about his declining health and career. Clifton Collins Jr. anchors the film with a meaningful and authentic performance. People looking for a lot of horse racing in the movie might be disappointed that “Jockey” doesn’t have much of this type of action. “Jockey” is more of a human drama that examines something that most movies about jockeys almost never show: the health problems that often force a lot of jockeys to retire before they feel ready for retirement.

Directed by Clint Bentley, who co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Greg Kwedar, “Jockey” had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, where Collins won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Actor. “Jockey” takes place and was filmed on location in Phoenix. There are quite a few striking scenes (cinematography by Adolpho Veloso) that happen at sunset, showing silhouettes and majestic skies. Whether it’s intentional or not, the sunset is a metaphor for the sunset of a career of a middle-aged jockey, who has made horse racing his entire life and is afraid of what his identity will be without horse racing.

Jackson Silva (played by Collins) is the protagonist/title character of “Jockey.” He’s a never-married bachelor who lives by himself and made horse racing his entire life. The movie’s opening scene is one of the sunset scenes, and it takes place at a horse racing track. Jackson and his longtime jockey friend Leo Brock (played by Logan Cormier), who are both in their 40s, are watching some younger jockeys practice on the track.

Jackson says to Leo: “I ain’t the same anymore, Leo. We’re both getting old.” Leo, who’s a bit of a sarcastic joker, replies, “But I’m like fine wine—I’m getting better.” Jackson can’t say the same thing. In fact, he knows his health is deteriorating, but he doesn’t really want to talk about it with anyone.

It’s not seen on camera, but Jackson has asked a veterinarian who treats horses to give Jackson an X-ray of his back. What is shown in the movie is the doctor discussing the X-ray results with Jackson. And the news isn’t good. When the doctor asks Jackson what kinds of injuries he’s had, Jackson tells him that he’s broken his back about three times. And those are just the injuries he’s willing to talk about to this doctor, who urges him to go to a medical doctor for humans as soon as possible.

Jackson has been working with the same trainer for years. Her name is Ruth Wilkes (played by Molly Parker), and she’s known Jackson since they were both in their 20s. Ruth senses that something isn’t quite right with Jackson. When she asks Jackson if he has any problems or concerns that he’d like to talk about, he denies that anything is wrong with him.

Meanwhile, one day Jackson is at a local diner and sees a 19-year-old aspiring professional jockey named Gabriel Boullait (played by Moises Arias), who has been asking around about Jackson and has recently started working as a stable boy for Jerry Meyer (played Daniel Adams), the owner of multiple race horses. Jackson joins Gabriel at his table and strikes up a conversation with him.

At first Jackson gives some friendly advice, such as telling Gabriel that he should focus on getting the right trainer before thinking about getting an agent. And then, Jackson starts asking Gabriel about where Gabriel grew up. Gabriel says that he’s originally from the South but he spend the last several years living in San Diego before moving to Phoenix. Jackson is curious to know why Gabriel has been asking about Jackson.

And that’s when Gabriel blurts out his mother Ana told Gabriel that he’s Jackson’s son. Jackson’s immediate reaction is a firm denial about being Gabriel’s father: “I don’t know what she told you, but that’s not possible. I’m not going to get in the particulars of it, but you and I are not related.” Jackson mumbles something about some wild times he had with Ana, but he implies that the timeline of their fling doesn’t match with when Gabriel would have been conceived.

Jackson then gets suspicious about Gabriel’s intentions and says that even though he’s a well-known jockey, he’s not rich and is actually barely surviving on his meager salary. “I’m not after your money,” Gabriel says defensively. Jackson replies, “Good, ’cause I’ve got nothing else to give you.”

Before Jackson ends the conversation and leaves the table, he tells Gabriel: “Don’t go around telling people you’re my kid. Makes me look like an asshole. You know what I don’t need? To look like an asshole.”

Around the same time that Jackson meets Gabriel, Ruth buys her first horse: a young racing mare named Dido’s Lament. Ruth is sure that the horse can be a champion with the right jockey. Ruth introduces Dido’s Lament to Jackson and lets him take the horse for a test run.

Jackson is flattered but he’s also realistic when he tells Ruth that he’ll understand if she chooses to have a younger jockey ride Dido’s Lament in any upcoming races. Ruth tells Jackson that she wants him to be the horse’s jockey. “We’ve come this far,” Ruth says. But she also hints to Jackson he needs to get in shape because he’s gained weight. “We’ve both gotten comfortable,” Ruth says as she pats his stomach and her stomach.

An elated and grateful Jackson immediately begins training to get physically fit for upcoming horse races. He tells Ruth that he’s “in it to win it.” The rest of “Jockey” shows what happens when Jackson gets this chance to extend his career. He also ends up mentoring Gabriel and becomes almost like a father figure to him.

However, Jackson can’t ignore his health problems. When he visits a doctor, he finds out exactly what’s wrong. How he handles it is a measure of his character and how much he wants to hold on to horse racing as part of his identity. As an example of how Jackson’s state of mind, not the horse racing, is the focus of the film, during Jackson’s horse racing scenes, there are only closeups of his face. (It’s also an easy way for this low-budget film to avoid staging any tricky horse races.)

Because of Jackson’s budding relationship with Gabriel, Jackson also has to face painful realities about what his life has become. It’s not that Jackson has regrets about not having children. It’s more about Jackson starting to understand that although he devoted to horse racing, he doesn’t have much to show for it, except some trophies, mementos, health problems, and a shaky financial future. He has friendships with other jockeys, but they talk mostly about work-related things.

Jackson sacrificed a lot of relationships along the way in his single-minded pursuit of his career, so now he’s alone when it comes to love. If he has any family members who are still alive, they’re not mentioned in the movie. In a candid conversation with Gabriel, Jackson shares some of his childhood memories, which explains why Jackson ended up making the choices he made in life. Jackson sees a lot of his younger self in Gabriel. And it makes Jackson feel proud, happy and scared.

Collins gives an understated but impactful performance as this lonely but defiant jockey. All of the other cast members (some who are real-life jockeys) give realistic performances too, but Collins’ portrayal of Jackson is the heart and soul of the movie because Jackson goes though the most mentally, physically and emotionally. Some viewers might think that “Jockey” is too slow-paced for a movie about a horse racing jockey. But if viewers have the patience to watch the entire film, it’s worth it just for the last scene, which is proof of why Collins gave an award-winning performance.

Sony Pictures Classics released “Jockey” in select U.S. cinemas on December 29, 2021. The movie is set for an expanded, nationwide theatrical release on February 11, 2022.

Review: ‘Breaking News in Yuba County,’ starring Allison Janney, Mila Kunis, Awkwafina, Wanda Sykes, Juliette Lewis, Samira Wiley and Regina Hall

February 21, 2021

by Carla Hay

“Breaking News in Yuba County”

Directed by Tate Taylor

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional U.S. Southern city of Stanlow, the dark comedy “Breaking News in Yuba County” features a predominantly white cast (with some African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing the middle-class, working-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A lonely, middle-aged woman pretends that her philandering criminal husband has been kidnapped (even though he really died of a heart attack), so that she can get sympathy and attention.

Culture Audience: “Breaking News in Yuba County” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Allison Janney and to people who don’t mind watching incoherent movies about people behaving badly.

Allison Janney, Mila Kunis and Regina Hall in “Breaking News in Yuba County” (Photo Anna Kooris/MGM)

Oscar-winning actress Allison Janney has worked with director Tate Taylor in all of his feature films so far, and she usually plays supporting or minor characters in these movies. The dark and violent comedy “Breaking News in Yuba County” is the first Taylor-directed film where Janney is front and center as the movie’s lead character. And it’s a dreadful misstep not only for Taylor and Janney but also for everyone involved in this embarrassing mess. “Breaking News in Yuba County” (whose producers include Taylor and Jake Gyllenhaal) is proof that having a talented cast doesn’t automatically equal a good movie.

In “Breaking News in Yuba County” (whose horrendous screenplay was written by Amanda Idoko), Janney portrays Sue Buttons, a lonely woman who feels neglected and under-appreciated and goes to extreme lengths to get attention. The movie shows obvious signs that Sue doesn’t get the respect that she thinks she deserves, to try and make her look sympathetic. But her personality and actions are so off-putting (and so are almost all of the characters in this stinker film) that the movie’s attempts to be comedic are pathetic and monotonous.

“Breaking News in Yuba County” takes place in an unnamed U.S. state in the South, in a fictional city called Stanlow, located in Yuba County. In the movie’s opening scene, viewers see Sue listening to motivational affirmations on her iPod as she goes to a supermarket. She repeats these mantras several times throughout the movie: “My story matters. I am enough. I am confident.” Sue’s self-directed pep talks do little to change the way that the outside world treats her. And something happens on her birthday that causes her to snap and go from being a mild-mannered, law-abiding citizen to being a stone-cold, heartless fraudster.

She arrives at the grocery store to pick up her small birthday cake, which is inscribed with the words “Happy Birthday, Sue.” But Sue notices that the “e” looks more like a “c.” She points out this mistake to the pastry worker behind the counter, with a tone of voice implying that she wants the error corrected. But the worker just ignores Sue’s attempt to assert herself and asks if Sue is paying by cash or credit.

Sue is married to a corrupt banker named Karl (played by Matthew Modine), who’s first seen at their home talking dirty to a woman whom he plans to meet later for a sexual tryst. Sue doesn’t know about this affair but she’ll soon find out on her birthday. She’ll also find out later about her husband’s illegal activities. In the meantime, Sue has made plans for her and Karl to have a romantic dinner at a restaurant on her birthday.

But as soon as she arrives home, Karl is out the door to go meet up with his mistress. Meanwhile, Sue takes her birthday cake and makes the correction on the letter “e” herself. She then goes to her job, a place called Sidewinder Safety Tubs, where she works in customer service at a call center. The only work on the job that the movie shows her doing is taking one phone call from a rude customer who curses at her.

Considering all the ludicrous shenanigans that Sue gets up to later that take up all of her time, the movie shouldn’t have bothered showing her having a job at all. This movie is so badly written that it’s never explained how Sue took all the time off from work that she takes to try to cover up her web of lies. But the filmmakers seem to assume that everyone who’s watching this movie is as idiotic as the characters.

Sue just happens to be driving near a motel when she sees Karl’s car parked outside. She gets out and sees him holding some flowers and going into a motel room while calling a woman inside “honey” before he shuts the door. An alarmed Sue goes to the motel’s front desk and correctly assumes that the room is reserved in Karl’s name. Sue tells the front desk clerk that she’s his wife and pretends to have accidentally locked herself out of that room, so she asks for a spare key.

Sure enough, when Sue lets herself into the motel room, Karl is having sex with another woman, whose name is Leah Norton (played by Bridget Everett), whom Sue has never met before. Sue gets angry, while Karl and Leah are naturally startled and horrified at being caught. Karl is so surprised that he falls off the bed, has a heart attack, and dies.

While Leah is freaking out and babbling, Sue finds out that Leah is also married. She slaps Leah and tells her that she will inform Leah’s husband about Leah’s cheating if Leah doesn’t leave the motel immediately. Sue also tells Leah that Sue will take care of the problem of Karl’s dead body. Leah doesn’t hesitate to quickly leave the motel.

Instead of being upset that Karl is dead, Sue forlornly says out loud as she sits on the bed, “You forgot my birthday.” Sue then hatches a plan to bury the body in a lot near the motel. This movie is so stupid, that it shows Sue digging the grave in plain view where anyone could have easily seen her. But there would be no “Breaking News in Yuba County” if she were caught that quickly and easily.

Meanwhile, Sue doesn’t find out until after Karl dies that he was involved in a money-laundering scheme with some local criminals, who used Karl to launder millions of dollars. The people in this illegal enterprise are a ruthless crime boss named Mr. Kim (played by Keong Sim); his sometimes-bungling daughter Mina (played by Awkafina), who tries to be as tough as her father; a menacing, trigger-happy thug named Ray (played by Clifton Collins Jr.); and Karl’s younger brother Petey (played by Jimmi Simpson), who’s been trying to leave his criminal life behind.

Petey works as a salesperson at a furniture store named Rita’s, owned by a sassy lesbian named Rita (played by Wanda Sykes), who manages the store with her equally feisty live-in girlfriend Debbie (played by Ellen Barkin). Rita and Debbie know that Petey has a criminal background, but he’s told them that he’s trying to “go straight” and stay out of trouble. Debbie is often suspicious of Petey and sometimes accuses him of stealing from the store. Meanwhile, Rita has a friendly rapport with Petey, and she strangely tells Petey that she wouldn’t mind too much if he was caught stealing because she would understand that he would be stealing out of desperation.

Sue is fixated on a local news/public affairs TV program called “The Gloria Michaels Show,” which has been doing constant coverage of a missing 13-year-old girl named Emma Rose. After Sue has buried Karl’s body, she goes home and watches the show. She has a silent “a-ha” moment when she sees Emma Rose’s parents Jonathan and Robin (played by Michael A. Newcomer and Liz Elkins Newcomer) being interviewed by host Gloria Michaels (played by Juliette Lewis), who tells the distraught parents that they have the unwavering support of the community in finding Emma Rose. Gloria is a TV personality who’s a mix of Nancy Grace and Deborah Norville, even down to having the same type of blonde bob hairstyle and Southern accent.

Sue decides that she can get the public’s sympathy and attention if she pretends that Karl is missing. Sue calls the restaurant to cancel the dinner reservation by saying that her husband isn’t feeling well. It’s a discrepancy (and plot hole) that a good investigation team would be able to uncover when Sue later reports that Karl is missing. She foolishly claimed that Karl disappeared during the time she said that he was too “sick” to go to the restaurant. Another big plot hole is that Sue never bothers to contact anyone to try to look for Karl. But, of course, this movie has incompetent cops who investigate and overlook many of these things that would expose her lies.

Sue goes to the local police station to report Karl’s disappearance, but the officer on duty, Detective Cam Harris (played by Regina Hall), is impatient and dismissive, especially when Sue tells her that Karl has been missing for less than 48 hours. Detective Harris doesn’t file a report and instead advises Sue to ask Karl’s friends and relatives if they know where he is, because many missing spouses usually have just gone somewhere without telling their spouses. Once again, Sue feels ignored and disrespected.

The gravity of what Sue has done begins to sink in with her. When she goes home, she has a meltdown and starts trashing her house. She picks up the birthday cake, as if she’s going to destroy it too, but she can’t bring herself to do it. It’s symbolic of how she’ll take extreme measures later in the story to save herself and destroy others, just so she won’t be exposed for committing the crimes of illegal disposal of a corpse and lying to the police.

Sue has a younger half-sister named Nancy (played by Mila Kunis), who comes over to visit shortly after Sue has her meltdown. The house looks like it’s been ransacked, so Sue pretends to be distraught that Karl is missing. Sue also plays along with Nancy’s assumption that Karl was probably kidnapped during a home invasion.

It just so happens that Nancy is a highly ambitious and competitive TV reporter who works for a local station that’s a rival to the station that has “The Gloria Michaels Show.” Sue and Nancy see Karl’s “disappearance” as an opportunity to get media attention for themselves. Predictably, Nancy offers to interview Sue on TV about the “disappearance.” Nancy doesn’t really care that Karl could be missing; she just wants to get a “news scoop” over the competition.

This TV interview is the first time that Petey finds out that his older brother Karl is missing. And that’s a problem because Karl had $3 million that he was supposed to launder, so now that money is missing too. In a panic, Petey tells Mina and Ray that he doesn’t know where Karl or the money is. And inexplicably, Mina decides to tell Petey that she and Ray have kidnapped Karl, so that they can extort $20,000 in ransom money from Petey. It’s a dumb decision by any standard, but it’s an example of how bad this movie is.

What follows is a convoluted and messy farce, with betrayals, more lies, and people inevitably getting killed in brutal ways. Detective Harris is the only cop on the case who gets suspicious of Sue. But Detective Harris is stonewalled by her dimwitted junior cop partner Officer Jones (played by T.C. Matherne) and their boss Captain Riggins (played by Dominic Burgess), who both think that Sue doesn’t seem like the type who could be a criminal mastermind. It’s a subtle commentary on how certain people, because of their physical appearance, are given a “privileged pass” with law enforcement.

The movie has a few supporting characters that don’t have much to do except be possible targets of violence. Petey has a pregnant girlfriend named Jonelle (played by Samira Wiley), who grows concerned at how strange he’s been acting lately. Her pregnancy only seems to be in the movie so there’s an inevitable scene of a pregnant woman in a vicious fight. And then there’s one of Karl’s bank colleagues named Steve (played by Chris Lowell), who doesn’t do much but act frightened when Mina and Ray predictably show up at the bank to look for Karl.

This type of low-quality movie usually has a cast of unknown actors. But it’s very disappointing to see how many talented and famous actors (who are all known for doing much better work elsewhere) are in this atrocious movie. Not even the action stunts are interesting to watch.

And the tone of the film is horribly uneven, as the actors do their performances as if they’re in very different films. Awkwafina, Barkin, Sykes, Kunis, Hall and Simpson act as if they’re in a goofy slapstick comedy. Matherene, Burgess, Wiley and Lowell act as if they’re in a serious drama. Janney, Lewis, Collins, Sim and Everett come closest to capturing the movie’s intended dark satire. Modine isn’t in the movie long enough for most viewers to care about his Karl character, who seems to be despicable anyway.

Almost as annoying as this movie’s characters is the music score by Jeff Beal, because it’s the epitome of sitcom smarm. Given how violent this movie is, the music is completely out-of-place and awkward, because it sounds like something that should be for an outdated family comedy series on TV. The overall direction of the movie is lazy, as if Taylor just let the actors do their own thing instead of having a cohesive tone for the film. And clearly, the filmmakers didn’t do enough to fix the many problems in the screenplay.

It seems as if “Breaking News in Yuba County” tried and failed to be like a Guy Ritchie crime film, by having a story where lawbreakers comically try to outdo each other in absurd ways, while they attempt to cover up everything and blame their misdeeds on other people. There are plenty of female-centric dark comedy satires that get all the elements right, including 2017’s “I, Tonya,” the movie that garnered Janney her Academy Award. Sometimes bad movies are fun to watch, but “Breaking News in Yuba County” is the type of irritating movie where viewers can’t wait for it to be over and won’t care what happens to the characters in the end.

MGM’s American International Pictures released “Breaking News in Yuba County” in select U.S. cinemas and on digital and VOD on February 12, 2021.