They Cloned Tyrone

A drug dealer named Fontaine is shot dead and wakes up the next morning as if nothing happened. With the pimp Slick Charles and a sex worker named Yo-Yo, he finds a laboratory under the neighbourhood. What is running inside is a government operation conducting behavioural experiments on Black residents: cloning, mind control through food additives, and a plan to whitewash people across generations. It is Juel Taylor's first feature. John Boyega, Teyonah Parris and Jamie Foxx star. The screenplay was optioned from The Black List in 2019. Principal photography ran from November 2020 to April 2021 at Blackhall Studios in Atlanta. It premiered at the American Black Film Festival on 14 June 2023, opened in limited release on 14 July and landed on Netflix on 21 July. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 95 percent and Metacritic at 74, with critics calling it provocative, clever science fiction and praising the cast. The manner is borrowed from seventies blaxploitation; the palette, the clothes and the music speak that language directly. Who it is for: viewers who like genre mixes and comedy running alongside conspiracy. Who it is not for: anyone who needs a clean resolution in the last act. The film leaves most of its questions open on purpose.