American political discourse is plagued by claims the country is now a “post-racial” society, despite being built on and still actively guided by white supremacy. So it’s no wonder that Black filmmakers like Jordan Peele and Boots Riley have been drawn to tales entrenched in gaslighting and conspiracy. Two of their films, Peele’s Get Out and Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, have found a spiritual companion in They Cloned Tyrone, the directorial debut of Creed II screenwriter Juel Taylor.
Taylor’s film, however, exists entirely within its own strange, alluring dystopia. It’s subtle, and not so different from our own world – minus a lining of perpetual fog and the fact everyone’s dressed like they’re in a Seventies Blaxploitation flick. Fontaine (John Boyega) is a small-time drug dealer, increasingly exasperated by his debtors’ inability to pay up on time. After a particularly fraught showdown with the self-titled 1995 Players Ball Pimp of the Year, Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx), Fontaine is shot and killed by an unseen assailant – only to wake up back in his bed, the world as it ever was.
