Pastor David Sandow is a born again man with a successful ministry, a wife and two near-grown children, all with Christ central in their lives. Unbeknownst to them, one Elvis Valderez is exiting the Navy as a civilian and is planning to reunite with the father he never met, a meeting which will ultimately impact on the lives of his whole family.
Perhaps I watch too many mainstream films ("perhaps"?!) but sometimes I watch films that don't clearly point out how I should be feeling or what I should be thinking and it does throw me a little bit. The King was one of those films. I taped this due to the cast alone and had no knowledge of what it was actually going to be about. What I found was a very engaging film albeit with a very dark and uncomfortably open story. In terms of traditional flow and structure, the narrative is difficult because it offers you very little to cling to as the moral (or attention) centre and offers almost nothing in the way of hope, finality or anything like that. The religion of the story seems irrelevant to the events being played out (which I think is perhaps the point) but the characters and events keep it interesting.
Director Marsh works well with his own script to keep judgement totally out of the film and leaves it to the audience to come up with things themselves. This is not a perfect approach but it proved effective for me as it meant I was held by the people and thinking around them as I went. What it does is leaves the room open to the actors to deliver good performances and in this case they do. Bernal was a curiosity to me because I had not seen him in an English language film before and this was a strange choice for someone with his international reputation and fame. However unusual the choice though, his performance is quite perfect for the material as he is convincingly unhinged. By this I do not he is eating the scenery in a Hollywood killer way but rather he betrays no sign that what he does is "wrong" because, simply, his character does not seem to have this judgement within him so why should it appear like he does? Hurt is equally as good as he produces a deeply conflicted character convincingly, finding things that the script only suggest. James and Dano are both solid in supporting roles, working effectively with the two strong leads.
Overall then this is a strange film that is as engaging as it is remote, as dark as it is touching. It is an unusual mix that is both strengthened and weakened by its lack of instruction to the audience but one that mostly comes together thanks to well judged delivery and a handful of very good performances in the lead.
Perhaps I watch too many mainstream films ("perhaps"?!) but sometimes I watch films that don't clearly point out how I should be feeling or what I should be thinking and it does throw me a little bit. The King was one of those films. I taped this due to the cast alone and had no knowledge of what it was actually going to be about. What I found was a very engaging film albeit with a very dark and uncomfortably open story. In terms of traditional flow and structure, the narrative is difficult because it offers you very little to cling to as the moral (or attention) centre and offers almost nothing in the way of hope, finality or anything like that. The religion of the story seems irrelevant to the events being played out (which I think is perhaps the point) but the characters and events keep it interesting.
Director Marsh works well with his own script to keep judgement totally out of the film and leaves it to the audience to come up with things themselves. This is not a perfect approach but it proved effective for me as it meant I was held by the people and thinking around them as I went. What it does is leaves the room open to the actors to deliver good performances and in this case they do. Bernal was a curiosity to me because I had not seen him in an English language film before and this was a strange choice for someone with his international reputation and fame. However unusual the choice though, his performance is quite perfect for the material as he is convincingly unhinged. By this I do not he is eating the scenery in a Hollywood killer way but rather he betrays no sign that what he does is "wrong" because, simply, his character does not seem to have this judgement within him so why should it appear like he does? Hurt is equally as good as he produces a deeply conflicted character convincingly, finding things that the script only suggest. James and Dano are both solid in supporting roles, working effectively with the two strong leads.
Overall then this is a strange film that is as engaging as it is remote, as dark as it is touching. It is an unusual mix that is both strengthened and weakened by its lack of instruction to the audience but one that mostly comes together thanks to well judged delivery and a handful of very good performances in the lead.