A drug dealer, a pimp and a prostitute investigate a government plot to create clones of residents in their neighborhood.
There are influences from Quentin Tarantino and Stanley Kubrick in They Cloned Tyrone, but also John Singleton and the Hughes brothers. That said, Juel Taylor’s (co-screenwriter of Creed II) is one of the most original proposals.
Without losing a moment, we are immersed in The Glen, an underprivileged neighborhood inhabited almost exclusively by African-Americans. The city is never specified. The time is also nebulous. Fashion and technology point to the turn of the 2000s, but the grain of the image as well as certain songs and cars are straight out of the 1970s. Later, a character talks about cryptocurrency and blockchain… These anachronisms are one of the ways of confusing us. It’s good not to know where we’re going!
The other main trick is the mix of genres: blaxploitation, gangster film, science fiction, satire, suspense…
During the first two thirds of They Cloned Tyrone – the ending has less charm, overdoes it and stretches – Juel Taylor skillfully juggles all these styles thanks to an effective camera, an excellent soundtrack, a captivating narrative and a superb cast.
Fontaine (John Boyega), Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx) and Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris) know each other well, but don’t particularly like each other. The first sells cocaine to the second, while the latter exploits the latter. The trio stumble upon a gigantic underground laboratory where clones and mind-control devices are made. Our plot description ends here, as Juel Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier (Space Jam: A New Legacy, Young. Wild. Free.) deserve to have their unique ideas gradually discovered.
Different degrees of interpretation
The performance of the three actors allows They Cloned Tyrone not to be a wacky movie. John Boyega (the most recent trilogy Star Wars, The Woman King) plays Fontaine with a pent-up rage that he releases only briefly. This restraint is in total opposition to Jamie Foxx (Ray, Django Unchained) and Teyonah Parris (Chi-Raq, If Beale Street Could Talk) which form a duo pimp And pro hilarious. Their incessant insults, their countless references to popular culture, their Olympic repartee. They are merciless, but vulnerable. Very beautiful compositions.
PHOTO BY PARRISH LEWIS, SUPPLIED BY NETFLIX
Teyonah Parris, Jamie Foxx and John Boyega in They Cloned Tyrone
Part of the genius of They Cloned Tyrone also resides in its few degrees of interpretation. The development in a secret laboratory of products to control the population of a predominantly black neighborhood could be compared to the “crack epidemic” in the United States in the 1980s. In this case, the protagonist is a drug dealer, but it is with food, cosmetics, music and advertising that the government secures its hold. There is food for thought.
thriller
They Cloned Tyrone
(VF: They cloned Tyrone)
Juel Taylor
With John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, Teyonah Parris
2:02 a.m.
On Netflix