King Richard. (12.)
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green.
Starring Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Jon Bernthal, Saniyya Sidney, Tony Goldwyn and Demi Singleton. Out on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD from Warner Bros Home Entertainment. 145 mins.
The problem with the biopic of a famous sporting figure is that it is fundamentally the same as a murder mystery where you already know whodunnit. Every time we see their relentlessly driven, man-with-a-plan father Richard Williams (Smith) trying to persuade some tennis coach or agent that his two girls Venus (Sidney) and Serena (Singleton) are future champions; or when he makes a decision that everybody else thinks is crazy, we know that he will be proved right. So the film offers you the dramatics of a foregone conclusion.
When Warner’s scheduled the preview screenings for this biopic were scheduled too late for my print deadline, I was annoyed but not heartbroken. As long as Will Smith didn’t go and win a bloody Oscar for it, I figured it’d be an omission I could live with it. Bump forward a couple of months and I’m casting my eyes across a list of Best Actor nominees that looks to be very much an open goal for him – unless the Academy were caught up in the authenticity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s yeehaw. So with a heavy heart, I requested a review disc and with an even heavier one that I noticed the running time of 146 minutes.
Much as I'd like to do a lame pun about this King Richard being a turd, it has to be freely admitted that this is a very skilful and satisfying entertainment, as good as you could've hoped for. It whizzes through its lengthy running time and my wife, who had very reluctantly said she’d start watching just to see what it was like, was quickly caught up in it and stuck with it to the end. Smith’s won’t be the greatest performance to grab an Oscar but he's eminently watchable and he's probably due one.
Anyone seeking grit and dirt should look elsewhere: this is firmly a tale of adversity overcome. It's like his earlier Pursuit of Happyness, but softer. Richard isn't pushed to the limits like the protagonist was in Happyness. He almost breezes through it; all really hard times he had to endured were during his childhood in the deep south and only figure in this narrative as education tales for Williams to use to make a point. (Given his personality you suspect he might be applying some dramatic license to his tales of run-ins with the Klan.)
Stuck in the ghetto of Compton, Richard work nights as a security guard, his wife (Ellis) pulls double shifts as a nurse and between them they have to find time to ensure all five of their daughters do all their homework, get straight A’s and put in their hours on the court, all the while trying to protect them from predatory gang members. (With its lawlessness, violence, gangs and drugs, Compton must be a hellhole to live in but as ghettos go it’s one of the more desirable: everybody lives in spacious detached bungalows with gardens. It’s a miracle it hasn’t been gentrified.)
His remarkable achievements thought shouldn’t disguise that Richard is a prime example of one of the worst kinds of people on the planet: the pushy parent. Anyone who has stood on the side of a football pitch and heard some enraged dad bellow "Get tight, get tight" at a bewildered 5-year-old knows the type and the film does allow that Richard was on occasion a bit of a dick, a limelight hogger who jeopardises his daughters' future success with his stubbornness. The rest of the family are to all extents and purposes, angels. They trail after him like the Von Trapp children following Maria, never once questioning the exacting regime of study, work and practice he has laid out for them.
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green.
Starring Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Jon Bernthal, Saniyya Sidney, Tony Goldwyn and Demi Singleton. Out on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD from Warner Bros Home Entertainment. 145 mins.
The problem with the biopic of a famous sporting figure is that it is fundamentally the same as a murder mystery where you already know whodunnit. Every time we see their relentlessly driven, man-with-a-plan father Richard Williams (Smith) trying to persuade some tennis coach or agent that his two girls Venus (Sidney) and Serena (Singleton) are future champions; or when he makes a decision that everybody else thinks is crazy, we know that he will be proved right. So the film offers you the dramatics of a foregone conclusion.
When Warner’s scheduled the preview screenings for this biopic were scheduled too late for my print deadline, I was annoyed but not heartbroken. As long as Will Smith didn’t go and win a bloody Oscar for it, I figured it’d be an omission I could live with it. Bump forward a couple of months and I’m casting my eyes across a list of Best Actor nominees that looks to be very much an open goal for him – unless the Academy were caught up in the authenticity of Benedict Cumberbatch’s yeehaw. So with a heavy heart, I requested a review disc and with an even heavier one that I noticed the running time of 146 minutes.
Much as I'd like to do a lame pun about this King Richard being a turd, it has to be freely admitted that this is a very skilful and satisfying entertainment, as good as you could've hoped for. It whizzes through its lengthy running time and my wife, who had very reluctantly said she’d start watching just to see what it was like, was quickly caught up in it and stuck with it to the end. Smith’s won’t be the greatest performance to grab an Oscar but he's eminently watchable and he's probably due one.
Anyone seeking grit and dirt should look elsewhere: this is firmly a tale of adversity overcome. It's like his earlier Pursuit of Happyness, but softer. Richard isn't pushed to the limits like the protagonist was in Happyness. He almost breezes through it; all really hard times he had to endured were during his childhood in the deep south and only figure in this narrative as education tales for Williams to use to make a point. (Given his personality you suspect he might be applying some dramatic license to his tales of run-ins with the Klan.)
Stuck in the ghetto of Compton, Richard work nights as a security guard, his wife (Ellis) pulls double shifts as a nurse and between them they have to find time to ensure all five of their daughters do all their homework, get straight A’s and put in their hours on the court, all the while trying to protect them from predatory gang members. (With its lawlessness, violence, gangs and drugs, Compton must be a hellhole to live in but as ghettos go it’s one of the more desirable: everybody lives in spacious detached bungalows with gardens. It’s a miracle it hasn’t been gentrified.)
His remarkable achievements thought shouldn’t disguise that Richard is a prime example of one of the worst kinds of people on the planet: the pushy parent. Anyone who has stood on the side of a football pitch and heard some enraged dad bellow "Get tight, get tight" at a bewildered 5-year-old knows the type and the film does allow that Richard was on occasion a bit of a dick, a limelight hogger who jeopardises his daughters' future success with his stubbornness. The rest of the family are to all extents and purposes, angels. They trail after him like the Von Trapp children following Maria, never once questioning the exacting regime of study, work and practice he has laid out for them.
