Sorry to Bother You

A rookie telemarketer in an alternate-reality Oakland (Lakeith Stanfield) finds success by employing his “white voice” (supplied by David Cross)—which admits him to the upper reaches of his sweatshop company, where he sinks over his head in the sinister plans of a mad-genius corporate billionaire (Armie Hammer). Rapper Boots Riley, making his feature writing/directing debut, pulls out all the stops in a pro-union, anti-corporate gonzo fantasmagoria that becomes wilder by the minute. It’s a crazy ride, and not every joke scores a mordant bullseye. But Riley is an original voice, and not as undisciplined as he seems; his movie begins in gritty, flippant realism, then pulls us along step by step until it becomes a paranoid fantasy so feverish that it plays almost as a parody of paranoid fantasies.