"SORRY TO BOTHER YOU".......A GOOD SWIFTIAN KICK IN THE ASS........

Sorry To Bother You (2018)   Satire may flourish on Saturday Night Live and late night talk shows.........but few filmmakers ever risk taking a no-holds-barred shot at it......

              So we immediately bestow the BQ 'Big Brass Ones' award to writer-director Boots Riley....

              He's got all the requisites for a first class satirist........he's funny, talented and seriously pissed off at the state of things today.......

                Even better, he's unafraid to to suddenly take his already freewheeling movie into batshit-crazy fantasy to hammer home his points........Johnathon Swift must be smiling down from Satire Heaven......

                In our much, much, much younger days, we briefly did a stint as a telemarketing cubicle slave and it was every bit as horrible and soul-sucking as it's depicted here........even without the new corrosive depths of racial profiling and corporate greed that Boots Riley throws into the mix......

                The film's hapless telemarketer (Lakeith Stanfield) stumbles into success beyond  his dreams when he affects a whitebread voice (dubbed in by David Cross) to convince suckers to part with their credit card numbers.  In no time, he ascends into untold heights of greed, falling into the clutches of WorryFree, a corporate slavery conglomerate run by a hyper coke-sniffing reptile (Armie Hammer)

                  That story set-up allows the movie to take deadly well-aimed potshots at everything in its path......corporate culture, insultingly idiotic TV reality shows, racial division.........even performance art and rap music go under the knife......

                   And in no way would we dare reveal the film's  high-diving plunge into enraged, demented fantasy during its final third........you're just going to have to see it believe it.......or stare at it in disbelief.

                    Here at last is a film festival escapee that deserves a wide audience........even  should those audiences scratch their heads as the film deliberately flies off whatever rails it barely held on to.  4 Swiftian stars (****) for a ripping good satire that's not afraid to let 'er rip........