They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
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 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. The title cheerfully gives that away, so I won't pretend it's a spoiler. For its first stretch it is huge fun: stylish, funny, strange, and brimming with confidence.
What Taylor has here, early on, is a real grip on tone. The setting feels lived-in and specific, the comedy lands because it's rooted in character, and there's a swagger to the whole thing, helped enormously by a soundtrack full of funk and attitude that does more than most scores to establish a world. You settle in thinking you're about to watch something genuinely special.
The trouble is that it cannot quite keep its footing. I'm 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. 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, all energy and showmanship. John Boyega is decent in a more grounded register, not a world away from the scrappy genre work of his breakout in Attack the Block, which for the record 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 the film, and she's working on a completely different level to everyone around her. Warm, committed, and genuinely hilarious. Give her more of everything, please.
The soundtrack deserves its own mention. It does a lot of heavy lifting, keeping the film's early mood alive even as the plot begins to sprawl and the premise gets progressively harder to invest in. Because that is, oddly enough, where the film undermines itself. The further the conspiracy unravels, the sillier it gets, and the sillier it gets, the more it asks of you emotionally at exactly the moment you're least willing to give it. A tighter second half, one that trusted the characters more and the plot machinations less, could have turned this into something genuinely great.
So I come away a little conflicted. There's a really good film in here: clever, original, gorgeously played. And it's undone by its own ambition, which is a strange and almost admirable way to fail. I'd 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. A bold, funny, frustrating ride that's well worth taking, even if it fumbles the landing.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2023 | Watched: 2026-08-21
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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