Today’s quick review: Kings. In Los Angeles in 1991, Millie (Halle Berry) struggles to support her large family of foster children, and her teenage son Jesse (Lamar Johnson) tries to keep Nicole (Rachel Hilson), a troubled girl, from falling in with William (Kaalan Walker), a troublemaker. But when tensions from the Rodney King trial boil over into riots, Millie turns to her cantankerous neighbor Obie (Daniel Craig) to keep her family safe.
Kings is a crime drama set in the weeks leading up to the Rodney King riots. The movie follows an overworked single mother as she tries to keep her family together and safe in the face of racial tensions, hostile police, and opportunistic criminals. Kings aims to be a sober drama about innocent people pushed into a terrible situation. However, issues with its setup, tone, and pacing keep it from having the intended impact.
Kings is a taxing watch. The setting is tense, every character is tightly wound, and a significant fraction of them are actively trying to make the situation worse. The movie is full of close calls and bad decisions, culminating in absolute chaos that puts everyone at risk. The upshot is that Kings effectively portrays a lose-lose situation. However, Kings gives the audience precious little to latch onto and not much hope of redemption.
The rest of the movie is a mixed bag. Lamar Johnson is perhaps the most sympathetic character as Jesse, a responsible boy dragged into bad company. Daniel Craig scores points with his performance as the half-antagonistic, half-reliable Obie. But the rest of the characters are frustrating, and the stop-and-go pacing of the movie makes it hard to invest in them. Instead of building to a crescendo, Kings sputters along.
The result is a movie that has most of the right pieces but doesn’t put them together well. With different scaffolding, Kings could be a moving tale about a family pushed beyond its breaking point. But Kings has a hard time achieving the emotional range it needs, and the structure of the story hurts both its build-up and its finale. Give Kings a shot if you’re interested in the subject matter, but look elsewhere for truly polished drama.
For a crime drama that examines similar tensions from a range of different perspectives, try Crash. For a crime drama about a crooked cop set during the Rodney King trial, try Dark Blue. For a more systematic look at hatred and violence, try American History X. For a sports drama about inner city violence, try Hardball. For a crime movie where short-sighted decisions take a situation from bad to worse, try Good Time.
[5.0 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5843850/). I give it a 6.0 for a mix of workable drama and storytelling flaws.