They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
They Cloned Tyrone arrived on Netflix in the summer of 2023 trailing the kind of word-of-mouth that tends to build quietly before suddenly becoming unavoidable. Produced by MACRO and Made With Love Media, it is a genre-blending science fiction comedy mystery that plants itself firmly in a Black American neighbourhood and uses that setting not merely as backdrop but as the very subject of its satire. The film's preoccupations, systemic exploitation, cultural erasure, and the invisible machinery of institutional power, place it in a tradition stretching back to works like Hollywood Shuffle from 1987, where comedy and pointed social critique were understood as entirely compatible bedfellows. That tradition has, if anything, grown more crowded and more confident in recent years, and Taylor's film arrives knowing exactly which shelf it wants to sit on.
This is the feature debut of director Juel Taylor, who co-wrote the screenplay with Tony Rettenmaier. Taylor had spent his earlier career as a writer, and the script bears the marks of that background: the dialogue has a rhythmic, lived-in quality, and the genre pivots are clearly architectural choices rather than accidents. The film's tagline, "Beware cheap imitations," signals the self-awareness at work throughout. The production is mid-budget by Hollywood standards, not the kind of figure that gets announced proudly in press notes, but the money is evidently on screen: the neighbourhood feels dressed rather than designed, which is precisely the right instinct for this sort of material.
The principal cast is where the film makes its most confident bets. John Boyega, whose career trajectory since his breakout role in Attack the Block and subsequent turn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been an interesting, sometimes frustrating watch, here strips things back to something grounded and inward. Jamie Foxx, no stranger to comedic excess, brings the kind of physical commitment to broad performance that is harder to pull off than it looks. Foxx's work in films like Django Unchained showed his range across tone and register, and here he leans into swagger with evident relish. Teyonah Parris rounds out the central trio, and her comic instincts, sharp and precise in a way that plays well against the other two, give the film much of its best energy. Kiefer Sutherland and David Alan Grier appear in supporting roles, adding a slightly heightened, theatrical quality to the world the film builds around its leads.
Cinematographer Ken Seng shoots the neighbourhood in warm, saturated colours that feel retro without quite tipping into pastiche: the palette owes something to the 1970s Blaxploitation films the story is clearly in conversation with, but it is applied with enough restraint to feel considered rather than cosplay. The cutting by editor Saira Haider is nimble in the film's busier sequences, keeping the comedy rhythms tight where they need to be without overcooking the quieter character moments. Composer Pierre Charles provides a score built around funk and soul textures, the kind of music that gives a film its swagger almost before anything has happened on screen, and it works in close collaboration with the period-adjacent look to establish the film's tonal world early and assertively.
They Cloned Tyrone announces itself as one of those films that refuses to sit still in a single genre, and for a good while that is exactly what makes it such fun.
Juel Taylor's 2023 debut opens as an atmospheric, darkly comic crime picture set in a rundown neighbourhood, before pulling the rug with a wild supernatural, sci-fi swerve, one the title cheerfully gives away, so I will not pretend it is a spoiler. For its first stretch it is huge fun: stylish, funny, strange, and brimming with confidence.
The trouble is that it cannot quite keep its footing. I am a sucker for comedy grounded in something real, Pineapple Express, one of the funniest films I know, gets that balance just right, staying surreal without ever quite floating off, and for a while They Cloned Tyrone looks like it might pull off the same trick. But as it runs on it tips too far into broad comedy while still asking you to take its world and its stakes seriously, and the two never fully reconcile. The tone begins to wobble, and the grip it had on you early on starts to loosen.
What keeps it afloat is a terrific cast. Jamie Foxx is great value as a flamboyant pimp, John Boyega is decent in a more grounded register, not a world away from the scrappy sci-fi of his breakout in Attack the Block (which by the way I really disliked), but the one who steals the whole thing is Teyonah Parris, who had me laughing out loud again and again; she is comfortably the best thing in it. The soundtrack is superb too, all funk and swagger, and it does a lot to keep the film's early mood alive even as the plot begins to sprawl.
So I come away a little conflicted. There is a really good film in here, clever, original and gorgeously played, and it is undone, oddly enough, by its own premise, which grows sillier and harder to invest in the further it unravels. I rate its ambition enormously, and I would take a swing-for-the-fences misfire like this over a safe, forgettable one any day of the week; it simply cannot sustain the terrific film it so nearly is. Three and a half stars, and a bold, funny, frustrating ride well worth taking, even if it fumbles the landing.
They Cloned Tyrone is the sort of film that provokes genuine argument, which is more than can be said for a great deal of what arrives on streaming platforms in a given year. Juel Taylor announces himself as a voice worth watching, even if this first outing does not entirely deliver on the promise of its own first act. The performances, the look, and the satirical instincts are all strong enough to make the wobbles feel like growing pains rather than fundamental failures. A polished but uneven debut, then, and one that suggests the more interesting film from Taylor is probably still ahead of him.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2023 | Watched: 2026-08-21
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for They Cloned Tyrone (2023) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Standard with Ads
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: Netflix · Netflix Standard with Ads
Physical: Amazon US
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