Vengeance (2022) review

Semi-successful writer Ben Manalowitz (Novak) really wants to "connect" more with "the people" and just so happens to get a phone call that one of his past hookups Abilene (Lio Tipton) was found dead of an overdose - her family thinks he was her boyfriend - so he goes down to remote Texas to attend the funeral and is informed by her brother Ty (Boyd Holbrook) that they're going to seek revenge.  The tone is flippant and grating - the "sophisticated" New Yorker scribe versus the Whataburger-and-rodeo fixated Red Staters - and it's somehow worse when it tries to be "philosophical" ("America is divided by time," "Everything means everything, so nothing means anything. Some things mean something").  Ben's attempt at being a "detective" is fruitless - he gets pushed from one department to another - and it seems the easiest solution in the Lone Star State is to shoot (with Chekhov's Gun!) the person that's most likely responsible for Abby's demise.  I could be mistaken, but "taking matters into your own hands" when there's a wrongful death isn't something they teach at Harvard.