MESSAGE FROM THE KING
Belgium/US, 2017, 102 minutes, Colour.
Chadwick Boseman, Luke Evans, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Natalie Martinez, Chris Mulkey-.
Directed by Fabrice Du Welz.
Message from the King is an investigative thriller from Fabrice du Welz (the horror film, Calvaire, the Thai- Burma setting Vinyan).
It plays very much like a Los Angeles detective story with touches of revenge. It draws strongly on the various neighbourhoods of the city, seedy as well as affluent.
The difference is that the central character, Jacob King, played by Chadwick Boseman (who had already played Marshall Thurgood in Marshall, James Brown in Get It on, baseball player Jackie Robinson in 42, had appeared once as Black Panther in a Captain America Marvel adventure, and was soon to be catapulted to stardom in Black Panther) arrives in New York for a week to track down his sister. He is from South Africa (strong accent and all).
King follows many leads, makes many contacts, eventually finds that his sister is dead. His feelings are enhanced by many flashbacks to his time as a boy, his happy sister, the young brother who eventually finishes up with Cape Town Numbers Gangs, in prison, dead.
He is helped by a sympathetic woman, Natalie Martinez, and also encounters a prostitute, Kelly, in his seedy hotel. She has a daughter, stacks vegetables, is sympathetic to King. This is a very good performance from Teresa Palmer.
Investigations lead him to seedy drug dealers who are also hitmen on demand. But he also gets a lead to a fashionable dentist, played by Luke Evans, who is all charm and innocence – but King follows him to the mansion of a film producer, Alfred Molina, and uncovers the story behind his sister’s death, her paying off her dead husband’s debts, into prostitution and selling her stepson to the film producer.
King is no slouch in violent confrontations with the gangs, especially his use of a bicycle chain. While there is an attempt on his life by two incompetent hitmen disguised as police, he is able to infiltrate the mansion, deal with the film producer and his staff, set up the dentist and others for an explosive finale.
Thugs have also threatened Kelly and her daughter. The rescued stepson runs away. And it is time for King to return to Cape Town, having saved a bag full of money and given it to Kelly and the daughter to go back to New Mexico.
When King returns to South Africa, it emerges that he is a member of the police force – and, so, we are not surprised.
There are many violent moments in the film but it works quite well as a detective story.
1. The tone of the title? Jacob King? His presence, dominance? His message?
2. The Los Angeles setting, echoes of detective stories and crime in Los Angeles? Border patrol? The seedy hotel and room? The streets? The gangs? Drug dealing? The contrast with the wealthy world, the high-class dentist, the film producer and his mansion? The musical score?
3. Jacob King, from Cape Town, his presence, appearance, manner, staying one week, getting information, the hotel, his room, the Korean shop and the mother’s reticence, the information from the son? Names? The group playing cards, hostility? Meeting Trish? Her friendliness, giving him names, the invitation to her party? Giving him Bianca’s bag, the dentist’s card, the cigarettes, later finding the video clip? And threatening the British and dealer and the assault?
4. The continued flashbacks to Jacob, Bianca and their brother, playful and joyful? The brother joining the Numbers Gangs in Cape Town, his death? Bianca and her decision to leave South Africa?
5. His return to the hotel, Kelly and her client? Kelly sympathetic, her daughter? Working stacking the vegetables? Conversations with Jacob? His borrowing her car?
6. The visit to Paul Wentworth, smooth talking, wealthy, proving that he was innocent? His going to visit Preston, the blackmail, the confrontation with the gang leader, sharing his profits with him?
7. Jacob, following Wentworth, seeing Bianca’s son at the pool, her stepson, the death of her husband? More information about Bianca, the drugs, having to pay for her husband’s debts, the sexual exploitation, the video? Her death and Jacob finding her body, the morgue?
8. Jacob and his return to Preston’s house? The audience learning about Preston, the movie mogul, the interest in Bianca, in her son, Bianca selling her son to Preston? The deals with Wentworth? The payment for the elimination of Jacob? Wentworth organising it?
9. Jacob, the pursuit by the police, the attempt to kill him, his overcoming them? Wentworth saying that Jacob was dead? Paying off the police?
10. Jacob confronting Preston, trying to rescue the stepson? Preston, his self-confidence, the video, his buying the stepson? Bianca’s death? Preston and his two assistants? Jacob killing them, shooting Preston?
11. The set up with the money, Jacob emptying the safe, Wentworth and the gang arriving? The money, the explosive in the money, their deaths?
12. Jacob, leaving with Armand, his running away? The threats to Kelly and her daughter? Jacob defeating the thugs?
13. Kelly and her daughter, on the bus, the bag full of money?
14. Jacob and his return to South Africa, the irony that he was police detective?
15. Essentially a detective story in the LA setting, with the added benefit of the South African background?
