By Robert Scucci
| Published
Sometimes I find myself mindlessly scrolling through streaming apps looking for something with a unique premise, only to end up empty-handed and deflated. When I landed on They Cloned Tyrone, I knew I was about to have my world rocked.
They Cloned Tyrone is self-described as a sci-fi mystery blaxploitation comedy, which isn’t exactly a common genre. I immediately wondered if I was about to watch another version of The Thing With Two Heads with modern production value, or something entirely different.
Firing up They Cloned Tyrone with no preconceived notions other than its 95 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, I was thrown into a world of deception, shady government experiments built on eugenics, and three reluctant heroes fighting to save their community one ass kicking at a time.
Told through Fontaine’s (John Boyega) foggy recollections, They Cloned Tyrone kicks off with a money run gone wrong. After collecting cash from his customer, Slick (Jamie Foxx), Fontaine is shot to death by rival gang member, Isaac (J. Alphonse Nicholson). The next morning, he wakes up with no injuries, going about business as if nothing happened. The problem is that witnesses saw him being gunned down with wounds that nobody could survive.
They Cloned Tyrone takes a wild turn when Fontaine, Slick, and Slick’s loyal sex worker Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris) uncover a hidden underground lab. There, a white doctor is performing grotesque experiments on Black residents.
Slick, mistaking a mysterious white powder for a recreational drug, ingests it and finds his mind dulled to the point of idiocy. Even worse, Fontaine stumbles on his own corpse lying on an operating table, forcing him to wonder how many times he’s been cloned or manipulated in ways he doesn’t yet understand.
The Plot Thickens
Back on the surface, the group notices people in their neighborhood behaving like Slick after his drugged stupor. They connect the dots, realizing the substance has been slipped into food, drinks, and even hair products to control the community through everyday consumption. Determined to expose the conspiracy at They Cloned Tyrone’s center, Fontaine, after experiencing countless ego deaths at this point, leads the charge to track down the lab, which has vanished from its original site.
With the greater good in mind, he reluctantly partners with Isaac, the man who killed him, to take on their true enemy: the white scientists running experiments beneath the city.
A Mind-Bending Mystery With A Wicked Sense Of Humor
Despite its layers of explicit and implied social commentary, They Cloned Tyrone never feels heavy-handed with its messaging. Instead, it leans into its own absurdity in the best ways possible, using profanity and stereotypes to pull viewers into submission while a grand conspiracy slowly comes into focus. Best of all, our reluctant heroes willingly take it upon themselves to put their heads together and solve one of the most bizarre mysteries in recent cinema with straight faces, which makes the comedy land even harder.
They Cloned Tyrone is streaming on Netflix.
