‘They Cloned Tyrone’ Is An Anachronistic Love Letter To Blaxploitation Films

In case, you haven’t heard, it’s 2023 and maximalist cinema is thriving. The trend’s latest offering is director Juel Taylor’s sci-fi caper, They Cloned Tyrone.  

Post the lockdowns of 2020-2021, cinema feels as if it’s exorcising gritty realism in favour of a stylish maximalism. After all, reality feels too real for all of us right now. Barbie, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Polite Society, One Thousand Years of Longing, RRR, Sorry To Bother You… real life is out and hyper-realism is in. 

Now we have They Cloned Tyrone. With its vintage ’90s and ‘70s phones, cars and blinged-up guns, but set decidedly in the now, the movie is a fantastical, anachronistic love letter to the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s.   

The movie begins with low-level drug dealer, Fontaine (John Boyega) going through his daily routine in his local neighbourhood, the Glen. Fontaine picks up his informant, middle-schooler Junebug (played by the scene stealing Trayce Malachi) who gives Fontaine info on some rival dealers whilst sipping juice and discussing SpongeBob Squarepants. When Fontaine hits the rival dealer with his beat-up ’90s car, Junebug is unphased. He’s more concerned that Fontaine is short 15 dollars on their agreed payment.  

At home, Fontaine’s mother is grief-stricken from the murder of Fontaine’s brother at the hands of the police. When Fontaine leaves his cramped house to collect a debt from local low-tier pimp Slick Charles (Jamie Fox) and is killed in a drive-by shooting by the same rival dealers from earlier — They Cloned Tyrone lulls the audience into the familiar trappings of the “Hood film”.  

That is, until Fontaine wakes up with no memory of the previous day or his own murder. But this isn’t a time loop, Fontaine is a clone. When he arrives at Slick Charles’, demanding his money (again), Slick and his most trusted “ho”, Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris) form an unlikely Scooby Doo trio to get to the bottom of what the hell’s going on in the Glen. 

Almost every element of They Cloned Tyrone is an homage to the Blaxploitation era of filmmaking. The genre, which had its peak in the ‘70s and ‘80s, was defined by hearty low-to-mid budget films stacked with Black cast and crews designed to get Black Americans buying movie tickets. Now iconic in its own right, the era ushered in new stars and cult classics like Pam Grier in Foxy Brown and Richard Roundtree in Shaft.  

Blaxploitation films were audacious screen stories of Black American life told via multiple sub-genres, including romance, crime and fantasy. So named for Hollywood’s transparent goal of drawing in paying Black film goers, Blaxploitation is a portmanteau of Black and exploitation. Yet the genre had its own distinct qualities that would later be emulated by filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino.  

Combined with the horny, cynical melodrama that typified ‘70s Hollywood culture, Blaxploitation films’ protagonists were also uniquely anti-authoritarian and seemingly strived to expand upon and even break the established stereotypes for Black Americans in Hollywood. In the early decades of Hollywood cinema, Black American characters tended to be limited to slaves, thugs, gangsters and temptresses. But Blaxploitation cinema, particularly films made by Black filmmakers of the era, helped change that.  

It’s this spirit, interrogating stereotypes with a loud and proud melodramatic story, that beats at the heart of They Cloned Tyrone. Director Juel Taylor, with the stylishly saturated grainy eye of cinematographer Ken Seng, breaks down Black stereotypes as a sinister façade for a greater evil: the maintenance of white domination. Without spoiling too much of They Cloned Tyrone’s multiple reveals, nothing in the Glen is at it seems — but everything is by insidious design: from the fried chicken, to the straightening cream, to, yes, even the people.  

The film relies heavily on well-known conspiracies, both true and speculated, to pack its punch. But thanks to the chemistry of its main trio, the revelations of hidden tunnels, mind-control hair products, and genetic testing are gut-wrenching. Parris, Boyega and Fox play Yo-Yo, Fontaine and Slick as people resisting the pre-determined roles their society forces them into at every turn. Slick (Fox) might seem the sassy vain pimp seen time and time again in “race” films of times gone by, but he’s the one who cares for the community enough to alert Fontaine to trouble and even brings “the mother-fucking cavalry” when shit hits the fan in the epic final showdown. Parris’ Yo-Yo appears at first glance to be the sassy Jezebel stereotype, but her testimony to Fontaine’s murder and love of “her girl Nancy Drew” swiftly marks her as the brains trust of their tiny revolution. With Fontaine (Boyega) at the helm, the trio’s bond is forged in earnest determination to break one another free of the forces that have trapped them in their lives. 

In this sense, the magic of They Cloned Tyrone is the skilful meta-commentary it manages without being self-aggrandising. There are no Deadpool-esque moments where Fontaine looks at the camera and lampshades the stereotypical nature of his character, nor are their Barbie-esque witticisms in which the racism inherent to the Glen is discussed. Instead, Taylor and co-writer Tony Rettenmaier create a bombastic microcosm of real life in which generations of clones are created to play roles by those in power. “I was made in a tube,” Fontaine tells Yo-Yo. “I ain’t even real. I ain’t even have no say in this shit.” Is Fontaine talking about the narratives of figures like him in films of the past, or is he speaking for those in real life trapped in their circumstances by systemic racism? There is no real difference.  

Maximalist cinema’s latest wave — particularly films like They Cloned Tyrone, Polite Society, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and even Barbie — reflect how hyper-realism conventions are being utilised by marginalised storytellers to portray, not their experiences, but how their experiences actually feel. A racist system is so omniscient and affecting, it can feel like you’re a clone made-to-order. In EEAAO, the inter-generational trauma of immigrant families is so endless, it literally spans multiverses. The patriarchy is so pervasive, it might as well infect worlds — as a virus does in Barbie. These films aren’t just genre films by underrepresented filmmakers. They’re not just capers. They’re sincere treatises on complex experiences delivered in an ostentatious style that will not be ignored.  

They Cloned Tyrone is on Netflix. 

Author reminder: SAG-AFTRA and the WGA are on strike against major studios, including Netflix, and supporting filmmakers, especially marginalised filmmakers is vital. Find out how to support striking creatives here.