They Cloned Tyrone – An Eccentric Watch That Delivers (Early Review)

A pimp, a pro, and a hustler walk into a conspiracy…

These are the words that accompany the trailer for the latest Netflix original movie, They Cloned Tyrone, and they couldn’t do a better job of succinctly summarizing a mind-bending thriller that leaves the audience questioning their reality in a comical way.

They Cloned Tyrone follows Fontaine (Boyega), a street hustler who’s just trying to get through each day, Slick Charles (Foxx), a pimp whose greatest con is convincing himself he’s important, and Yo-Yo (Parris), one of his “ladies of the night” who has greater ambitions beyond her profession. In their own ways, each find a way to contribute to their society, albeit through questionable practices. However, fate manages to bring their worlds colliding into one another leading them down a rabbit hole of discovery and questioning the validity of everything they’ve ever known. Boyega turns in a solid performance as the film’s main influencer of the narrative moving forward while Parris assumes the role of the moral compass as the trio wrestles with the well-trodden “greater good” complex that is presented to them. In the end, Foxx’s Slick Charles is the film’s standout character who delivers brilliant lines of dialogue with pitch-perfect timing that simultaneously keeps a comedic air within the film while helping to advance the ever-twisting plot and its pacing throughout the 122-minute running time.

The majority reading this review more than likely have viewed the film’s trailer, however, for those that haven’t, the film is best going into blind as it manifests another layer of investment that will have many completely immersed in the experience from start to finish. With that in mind, divulging any more details about the plot would be doing a disservice to what it is trying to accomplish, but the film’s approach to controlled experiments and cloning is so fun and outlandish that at various times, its satire broaches the possibility of reality which in and of itself feels ridiculous. Inevitably, there is a quiet viewer subconscious simply reciting the question, “What if?” that is subtlety haunting. They Cloned Tyrone never presents itself as a serious commentary on its scientific subject, but it never shies away from the absurdity of the question, “What if?” which only empowers its impact on both comedic and dramatic levels. Themes of mind control, murky morality, chemically-induced observations, and the greater good are all pieces of a larger narrative that does well to land the film’s emotional rationalization for its third act reveal while the epilogue leans even further into these themes in order to hammer home the broader thought experiment of what the viewer has just witnessed.

At the end of the day, They Cloned Tyrone takes an intriguing concept, based on facts grounded in historical context, and weaponizes it in a way that will leave audiences laughing alongside its winding narrative while avoiding any emotional shock as its premise is just beyond the realm of possibility, but never out of reach. The power of this experience is fantastic and entertaining while drawing attention to a much darker observation.

With excellent performances and a sharp script that focuses on a reality-bending concept, They Cloned Tyrone is an eccentric watch that delivers on all levels.

still courtesy of Netflix

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