The movie starts out with a comedic scene with B.J. Novak (Ryan from "The Office") talking to Taylor Swift's ex boyfriend, John Mayer (apparently playing himself--he goes by John in the movie) at a rooftop party in New York talking about life and dating. Their friendship and their conversation is intentionally and wildly vapid. Talking about how they're not afraid of commitment but rather, committing to the wrong person, which justifies the hookup culture they enthusiastically participate in.

They agree with basically every shallow and shortsighted thing each other says with "One hundred percent" to the point that you can tell that the writer and director (BJ, who also stars in the film) doesn't believe a word they're saying either. But it's a nice way to introduce us to this character and give us a peak inside the psyche of a culturally brainwashed city-person in modern America.

A few moments later, BJ sits down at the party with a woman with a fairly high position at a company that produces podcasts. BJ's character is a writer for the New Yorker who's obsessed with podcasts and is sure creating a successful one will offer him fulfillment, and he's pitching her what he believes is an idea. That idea states:

America is divided. But it's not for the reason that we think. We think that America is divided by geography: red state, blue state, city, country. We're missing something far more profound. America isn't divided by space. America is divided by time. We don't live in the moment anymore. And why would we, when we can live in any moment that's ever been recorded? And when we experience something we really love, our overwhelming instinct is to somehow file it away for later. We don't watch movies in the theater. We don't watch TV when it airs. We don't even have conversations at the same time because we text. And when you text, I can say "Hi," and you could say "Hi" back in a second, or a minute...which is kind of my point because we're all living in our own individualized times. That's why we're living in divided times."

The woman responds that she likes that. Then he asks her if she thinks it be a good story, and she says it's just a theory. He retorts.

Theories are stories. Stories about an idea. And America is an idea. That's what makes it so great.

But she replies:

No, America is its people. That's what makes it so fucked up.

And she shoots him down with some comment about him already being a successful writer for the New Yorker and that "not every white man in New York City needs to have a podcast."

He then says:

I want something more. I don't just want to be a writer. I want to be a voice. As dorky as it sounds, I care about America. And not in that faded Lana Del Rey way. And now I see it falling apart, and we're just standing in the corner, like, making fun of it, you know? I'd like to try to tell some story that...connects.

She replies:

OK well then let me help you out. With all your ideas about America--even if they're good, right?--you gotta put em in a story. Cause Americans listen to stories. Cause Americans are people. They're not...ideas. You're--you're here (pointing to her head). You need to be here (points to her heart). Does that make sense?

Looking blankly as if she's just spoken to him in Mandarin and dejected he says:

A hundred percent.

It then cuts to a shot of a subway train driving by with a quick shot of a small American flag painted on the side, and him riding the subway home, listening to a podcast titled "American Moment." He's still listening to the podcast on his headphones when he gets back at home and we see him typing on his laptop on his coffee table with a copy "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Toqueville. He takes a swig of brandy (we see a framed stock photo behind him that contains another American flag) and sees a text pop up on his laptop from "Brunette Random House Party" that says "Herrrreeeee."

He then closes his laptop and buzzes in "Brunettee Random House Party" in, who is now apparently blonde. He makes mention of this and then asks "How's the book world?" Her confusion tells him that she doesn't work for Random House, and he didn't meet her at a party thrown by Random House, and realizes that he just met her and some random...house party. She comes in, we can assume what happens next although we aren't shown, but it all plays up the the vapidness of hookup culture so we're sure to get the point.

A few hours later he gets a phone call from a number he doesn't recognize from a man telling him the bad news that his girlfriend just died. Confused, because he doesn't, and likely has never had a girlfriend, asks a few more questions so he can scroll through his phone really fast and figure out who the guy is talking about. The guy is her big brother, by the way, and he invites him to the funeral. BJ tries to politely decline but his unwillingness to be direct about it fails to deter the man on the phone and he soon finds himself feeling obligated to go. The location of the funeral we're told is some tiny town a five hour drive from Dallas out in the middle of nowhere.

Well, clearly so we can have a movie at all, he goes. He absolutely nothing about this girl he hooked up with once, but for whatever reason, her surviving family all thinks he was her boyfriend, and he's not in the mood to let them down, so he plays along. After the funeral, he's driving back to the airport with the brother who invited him, and once again, Ben (BJ's character) gets himself into more trouble by saying something he doesn't mean about how close he felt to the family. Again saying "100%". This inspires the brother to slam on the brakes, pull over, and tell him his theory (that his sister didn't die of an overdose "She'd never taken so much as an Advil in her life", but in fact as murdered) and his plan (to find out who killed her, and to exact vengeance--with Ben's help, of course).

At first Ben tries to wiggle out of it, but then the brother drops the line he needed to convince this particular hombre to stay. He says:

Stay down here and avenge Abby's death with me. What a story that would be.

Say no more. He calls the podcast lady and tells her where he was, why he was there, and what just happened to him, and pitches her a new idea: that obviously nobody killed this girl, the brother just can't cope with the suicide and has made up a story to make himself feel better and

This is about a new American reality that people can't accept so they invent these myths and conspiracy theories so they can cast themselves as heroes because...the truth is too hard to accept. The death of Abilene, is about the death of American identity and the need to find someone to blame for it. This isn't just a story about vengeance. It's a story about the need for vengeance. The meaning of vengeance.

She pauses, cause she's not sure that's really the real story I assume but she's gonna give him a little slack and, grasping for a reason it might sell says:

Dead white girl?

To which he responds:

Holy grail of podcasts.

He tells her the brother is "such a character" and has said so many crazy things already that he wished his recorder had already been on. She asks if he can get close to the family. He replies that of course he can, they think he was her boyfriend and (looking a little conflicted at the sleeziness of it) "I went to her funeral for God's sake."

She replies:

That's good. I mean, it's fucked up...but it's good...for this. Ok, let's give it a shot.

He then pitches the idea to the brother that they make a podcast about their vengeance tour with the rationale being he can draw national attention and recruit people around the country to help them solve the crime and the brother goes for it.

Now they're off.

Now we get to really see some caricatures of small town American Christians who lean right politically when he goes to stay at the family house closer to town. They talk about guns and God and family and Whataburger and how good it is "Just because it is" but you can tell that, while the family seems simple initially. they have good hearts, and they love each other, and those things are real and matter. When they ask him how he plans to help he gives them an answer that they don't buy but are too polite to call him out on and the mother replies with a simple "Bless your heart" (which we come to find out later is the polite Texas way of saying "Go fuck yourself" but Ben doesn't know that yet. He doesn't know how sharp these people are yet and he thinks he can get away with a subtle insult to their intelligence that they'll surely be too stupid to pick up on, but they do, and the mother answers him in kind. Brilliant little moment.

The brother then escorts Ben to the room he'll be staying in. Abilene's room. And says "I guess we have a guestroom now." Ben looks at the picture onf the wall and the Harry Potter books on the shelf, and sees her phone sitting on the bedside table but it's locked so he can't read what's inside. He opens his text thread with her from months earlier to see if he can find any clues but he gets nothing.

In the morning, he and the brother set off to find the girl's murderer. First stop is at an oil field manned by one of his friends who corroborates the brother's story that Abilene "never took so much as an Advil in her life" and reiterates the theory that she was killed by a Mexican cartel drug dealer who was obsessed with her. Then he says:

He's just a piece of it though. It's too big to understand. You got Deep State, in bed with pill pushers, cartels, pedos, the law...and you...you're a piece of it too.

We then cut back to Ben at the house interviewing the family. They go on and on about a burger place called Whataburger. He keeps asking why they like it so much and the brother says:

Asking why you love Whataburger is like asking you like Christmas or your dog. I mean you can point to the reasons but the reasons aren't really the point. You just love it. And that's how love works.

Ben then decides that since Abilene used to record music, he'd go to the recording studio alone to ask the guy who owns the place what he knows about Abilene, and here's where things got very interesting to me.

The owner of the recording studio out in the middle of nowhere is a guy by the name of Quentin Sellers (referred to by Mike, one of the two local police officers--half of "Mike and Dan" who the locals all say are a joke--at the end of the movie as "Q") played by none other than...Ashton Kutcher.

Now I don't know how much you know about Ashton Kutcher but there's a couple of things about him that I find pretty interesting:

First, he used to star in a reality show called "Punked." The aim of this show was to use Ashton's connections within Hollywood to place other famous actors in fake, but highly stressful situations, that they didn't know were fake, to see how they'd react. The moment things got too serious and it seemed like one of his star studded friends were about to lose it, he'd come running out of some hidden trailor with his camera crew and let them know they'd just been "punked." It was a blast of a show, honestly, to see how famous people would react to horrible situations in real life, when they didn't know they were being recorded. Kinda makes you think.

Now, a few years ago, Ashton helped found an organization called Thorn to help develop technologies that would help deter human trafficking. Here's the site: https://www.thorn.org/about-our-fight-against-sexual-exploitation-of-children/

People Magazine ran an article back in 2018 saying Ashton had helped save 6,000 children from human trafficking with that organization. See here: https://people.com/movies/ashton-kutcher-saves-6000-kids-human-trafficking-thorn-organization/

(Continued in comments...)