‘Vengeance’ review: B.J. Novak’s Texas murder film tries to do too much

nypost.com:

the better Hulu comedy series “Only Murders in the Building,” which has a similar premise and is releasing new episodes at the very same time.Running time: 94 minutes.

Rated R (language and brief violence). In theaters.Where B.J. Novak’s (“The Office”) promising-if-overcrowded directorial debut tries to differentiate itself from the Steve Martin/Martin Short show is its fish-out-of-water theme.

Novak also wrote and stars in the movie as Ben Manalowitz, a neurotic New Yorker (and a writer for the New Yorker) who reluctantly jets off to the farthest reaches of Texas after he learns that a girl he had been hooking up with is dead.The woman, Abilene, told her wacky Texas family that Ben was her devoted boyfriend, and they naturally want him to fly in for her funeral.

We’re, at first, led to believe “Vengeance” is a film about the awful things piggish men do to women, like sleep with a bunch and then deceive them.