- IMDB: 4.8/10
- Rotten Tomatoes: 3.4/10
- CP: 4.5/10
I know Kings is a drama and I know it stars Halle Berry, Daniel Craig and Lamar Johnson. I also know that the film’s timeline begins with the shooting of Latasha Harlins and ends with the conclusion of the 1992 LA Riots. But if you ask me what the film is about, that might be a little more complicated to answer.
Halle Berry plays Millie, a foster mother with a house full of bad ass foster children of all ages and races. Daniel Craig plays her weird next-door neighbor who dances naked in his window, goes to the neighborhood store in his robe and listens to opera constantly. Other than that he plays no major role in the film until the last 30 minutes when all of a sudden he and Halle have inexplicably formed some kind of romantic connection.
With the growing racial tension that ultimately culminates in the riots, as the backdrop, Kings focuses mostly on Millie’s oldest foster kid, Jesse. For some reason Jesse spends most of the movie doing dumb shit all in the name of what I guess he thinks is love. He’s smitten with some cute but neurotic, apparently homeless and definitely disloyal girl named Nicole (played by Rachel Hilson).
To be honest, it was the absurdity of his infatuation with this troubled little girl that kept me watching after the first 15 minutes. It was at that point that I was pretty sure I wanted to turn it off and catch up on Better Call Saul. But I stuck it out. I wish I could say it got better, but it didn’t. The film is all over the place making it really difficult to pinpoint what exactly the main storyline was supposed to be. The potential for something moving and impactful was there but the filmmakers missed opportunities to capitalize on that potential.
The performances were decent and I’d be lying if I said there weren’t “talk to the screen” moments, but they were few and far between. When things get hectic at the end of the movie during the height of the riot, the movie becomes just as messy and chaotic as the riot itself. Without giving away any spoilers (in case you still want to check it out) there was so much going on in the last act that it was hard to figure out who I was supposed to care about (because that certainly hadn’t been established in the first hour of the film) and ultimately I decided, “I don’t care about none of ‘em”. Spoiler – somebody dies, but I don’t care. Kids go missing, but I don’t care. The city is burning…and I don’t care. There’s plenty of drama to go around. The problem is, the filmmakers never gave me any reason to care about the characters that had to deal with it. Oh well, time to catch up on Better Call Saul.
Memorable Moment: There’s a scene in a convenience store parking lot when Nicole finds herself in a precarious situation. The way she responds is all the proof we need that this girl is not all “there”.