[yasr_overall_rating]
The life of a foster family in South Central Los Angeles, a few weeks before the city erupts in violence following the verdict of the Rodney King trial.
If the review’s title makes Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s L.A.-riot drama “Kings” sound like a slapstick comedy – well, it sometimes is. Whether its humorous bits are intentional or not, they jar against the earnestness Ergüven clearly strives for, Nick Cave an Warren Ellis’ soundtrack blaring as characters get shot, mauled and robbed. Yep, it’s another Message Movie, its Messages spelled out in big bold letters – look how little has changed since 1991, prejudice still reigns, and what are we doing about it? Let’s contemplate those Themes as we watch the finale, in which Craig’s Obie and Berry’s Millie are handcuffed to said lamppost, the city burning around them.
Curiously, Ergüven dedicates a significant chunk of the film’s already-trim 80+ minutes to grainy archival footage of the riots. I say “curiously” because the entire project makes me curious. There are moments of real power that stand out amidst all the message bludgeoning, misstepping and reliance on helicopter shots. Racial tensions are high after the Rodney King beating. Millie, the matriarch of a foster family of what seems like 18 children of varying ages, tries to keep her shit together, heavily aided by Jesse (Lamar Johnson), one of the older kids in the bunch. While Jesse earns pennies washing cars, the rest of the gang goes shoplifting. The foster family dynamics are believably chaotic, as is the milieu the director quickly establishes, particularly evident in a one-shot sequence of Jesse struggling to juggle many balls in a cramped apartment of screaming children. This apartment is both hell and haven, an anarchic cocoon.
Ludicrous elements begin to creep in with the appearance of Obie, Berry’s drunk British neighbor who’s prone to blasting his shot-gun whenever he’s upset. His character trajectory is evident – and groan-inducing – from the start, and the fact that Ergüven not only portrays Obie as the white savior but also navigates him into Millie’s life in such an awkward manner stinks of a desperate urge to infuse the film with a marketable white star to counterbalance all the “ghetto shenanigans.”
It’s the “King”’s young cast that drives the film’s momentum and its scenes involving them that are injected with palpable directorial flare and energy. Jesse is a force of nature, carrying the weight of the world on his fragile shoulders. Nicole (Rachel Hilson), the rebellious object of Jesse’s affection, is a sight to behold, particularly when telling off her entire school in front of a fence. A memorable sequence involves the two of them on a surreal, horrific journey through the fog-ridden streets of the riot-stricken Los Angeles, trying to save a wounded friend.
But then there’s Berry’s shrill performance – in tune with the film’s high pitch – and Craig’s hammed-up “savior” role, both of which distract massively from the verisimilitude of the proceedings. There are the needless asides and exhausting, finger-wagging moments. Ergüven is prone to sentimentality, which at times threatens to swallow up the narrative. And at the (ridiculously overwrought) end we learn… what exactly? That prejudice is bad? The police brutality still exists? That James Bond still has the chops to climb and flip over a lamppost? If only Ergüven stuck to her young cast and simply followed them through the events, documentary-style, this could have been an “L.A.-riots ‘Florida Project’”. As it stands, it’s like “Crash” meets “The Blind Side.”
Available On Demand and DVD July 31st
