'Sorry to Bother You' review: Satirizing black identity and corporate ethics, ruthlessly

"Sorry to Bother You" is about a telemarketer who becomes a superstar, for a price. It's a science fiction allegory, though the science fiction angle emerges late in the game. It's a provocative, serious, ridiculous, screwy concoction about whiteface, cultural code-switching, African-American identities and twisted new forms of wage slavery, beyond previously known ethical limits.

Premiering earlier this year at Sundance, the film comes from rapper and musician Boots Riley of the funk-tinged, Oakland, Calif.-based hip-hop band the Coup, who makes his feature