King Richard
The story of how Richard Williams served as a coach to his daughters Venus and Serena, who will soon become two of the most legendary tennis players in history.
- Released: 2021-11-18
- Runtime: 138 minutes
- Genre: Drama, History
- Stars: Will Smith, Demi Singleton, Saniyya Sidney, Aunjanue Ellis, Jon Bernthal, Tony Goldwyn, Susie Abromeit, Dylan McDermott, Judith Chapman, Katrina Begin, Erin Cummings, Andy Bean, Kevin Dunn, Craig Tate, Calvin Clausell Jr., Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew, Daniele Lawson, Layla Crawford, Erika Ringor, Noah Bean, Josiah Cross, Vaughn W. Hebron, Jimmy Walker Jr., Brad Greenquist, Johnno Wilson, Robert Nuscher, Christopher Wallinger, Chase Del Rey, Connie Ventress, Vivienne Bersin, Andy Hoff, Carrie Gibson, Doug Simpson, Brandon Morales, Wil J. Jackson, Erica Shaffer, Matt Kirkwood, Chet Grissom, Alden Sherrill, Eman Esfandi, Jessica Wacnik, Jonathan Bray, Robert Walker Jeffery, Rich Sommer, Kaitlyn Christian, Geoff Nathanson, Marcela Zacarias, Jake Jensen, Chris Pentzell, Sophia Sanders, Mia Jovic, Iva Jovic, Michael Andrew Baker, Tom Holmes, Kamea Medora, Tom Degnan, Virginia Schneider, Jeff Cohn, Adam Cropper, Danya LaBelle, Rod Sweitzer, George Ketsios, Valerie Davidson, Christian Yeung, Teri Cohn, Hannah Barefoot, Mel Fair, Holly Haggerty, Mary Pascoe, Albert Ton, Ebboney Wilson, Hailey Winslow, Chris Wolfe, Gunner Wright, Tory N. Thompson, Sean Berube, Sean Fabian Billings, Sophia Bui, Kika Cicmanec, John Dinan, Diana Dray, Mathew Trent Hunnicutt, Jeni Jones, Trent Longo, Johnny Mansbach, Katie McCabe, Aryn Nelson, Tristan Nokes, Dan Sachoff, Gabi Stewart
- Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Comments
- DLochner - 4 April 2024
A great Smith in a generic american dream movie
Will Smith's best acting performance to date. The film itself is classically pleasantly staged. Not too strenuous but not particularly outstanding either. Fans of retro clothes from the 90s will definitely enjoy the costumes. The story about a controlling father who decides before his children are born that they should become tennis professionals. The film is overlong and takes quite a while until it gets to its really intense moment. Despite interesting questions about social injustice, the film unfortunately remains just another biopic that portrays the American dream in a familiar way. But with a great Will Smith. - sherwoodbandit-1977 - 19 December 2023
It's Good to Be King...
All slappery aside, I love Will Smith! I've been watching and enjoying his film work nearly my entire life. I, Robot & I Am Legend are two of my personal favorites. The man has charisma and makes good script choices, which has sustained him for four decades on the silver screen. Even once he started moving into "serious" actor territory, he wasn't afraid to occasionally return to his comedic roots...something I wish Tom Hanks would do more often. There's no doubt King Richard was meant to be the culmination of an already prolific career, and it is mostly successful in that regard. The film is a typical "rags to riches," sports biopic with many good performances and heartfelt moments. It does suffer from being a bit formulaic, though I'm not sure if that was a result of me just not being a big tennis fan. I knew all the names mentioned and understood the stakes, it has just never been a sport I cared about, so that probably prevented me from going all in emotionally. Admittedly, it also took me longer to watch this because it was such an Academy Award darling, and I find those films to have an over bloated sense of themselves these days. Too often Hollywood fixates on making movies to win awards rather than just making good movies, and while I don't feel King Richard suffered from that, it did keep me from approaching it sooner.
Like most movies based on actual events, I did a lot of Googling about it, and was thrilled to find that Aunjanue Ellis had received a nomination. She was wonderful and absolutely deserved the accolades she received. I also love to see Jon Bernthal whenever he pops up. He is always good. All in all, Will Smith deserved the Oscar he received for his performance. And while it is unfortunate it was overshadowed by him allowing the succubus to brainwash him into acting out, I have no doubt that he will still go down into history as one of the greatest film actors of all time.
