TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2015 // A FILM REVIEW OF "KING JACK"
The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, runs April 15th-26th and features hundreds of features, documentaries, short films, and special events all throughout downtown New York City. The ArtsWire Weekly's three featured reviewers Mateo, Derek, & Chrisena are hitting the festival and bringing the reviews right to you! What you should see and what you should skip...
For a first time feature director, Felix Thompson has really hit it strong out of the gate with his debut feature KING JACK. It centers on Jack (Charlie Plummer), a 15 year kid in small town America. He doesn’t have a lot of people to count on; his mother is hardly aware of him at all, the father isn't there period, his older brother (Christian Madsen) is working his days at an auto repair shop but is also barely scraping by. He also doesn't really have that may friends. So he counts on himself, and does what he has to to get by each day. Those days are usually tormented by a sadistic older bully Shane (Danny Flaherty). To stay that Shane is a cruel person is to put it lightly. There's venom in his eyes, and he lets Jack have it every single moment he can (usually while his buddies cheer him on or stand by too scared to say anything). Things become more complicated when his aunt grows sick and his younger cousin Ben (Cory Nichols) comes to stay with him. Jack is left as a de-facto babysitter, which he immediately rejects. But while Ben starts as a thorn in his side, Jack ultimately starts to warm up to him and finds an unlikely ally in his own flesh and blood.
From the cinematography of Brandon Roots to the strong script and directing of Thompson, King Jack soars. The look inside of Jack's troubled life is complex yet simply told, never feeling overly dramatic or fake. It feels like a real boy’s very troubled day-to-day life of just trying to make it to the next morning. Much of that credit goes to Charlie Plummer, who pushes Jack past any sort of brat characteristic another actor may focus on and gives us a real lived in, breathed in characterization. A truly dynamic performance by a very young talented actor. The rest of the cast is also reliably strong. Madsen plays his "legend of sorts" brother with a strong heart, and one scene in particular, involving a paint gun and a crowbar, is frightening as much as it is thrilling. Young Cory Nichols gives a tearful and wonderful performance as his young cousin who's thrown around to places beyond his choice. His hopeful affection for a older brother of sorts in Jack is one of the strongest pulls of the film. Flaherty is terrifying and engaging as the older bully, and moves the performance beyond a one dimensional villain character and showcases Shane as a truly damaged kid fighting in all the wrong ways. Also giving a strong supporting role is Yainis Ynoa as Harriet, a young girl who's crushing hard over Jack while he can only notice the mean girl in school. The two have great chemistry together, and showcase what a real relationship, as a teenage often feels like; confusing, heartbreaking, and real.
Rich textures fill out KING JACK from the very first scene to the stellar ending sequence. It's at times hard to watch, but ultimately a moving and hopeful story of a young boy's quest to fit in somewhere, anywhere. Make sure you make time for Jack.
VERDICT: MUST SEE
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Felix Thompson STARRING Charlie Plummer, Cory Nichols, Danny Flaherty, Christian Madsen, Erin Davie, Yainis Ynoa, Scarlet Lizbeth, Chloe Levine.
Playing as part of The 2015 Tribeca International Film Festival. For tickets & schedules: http://www.tribecafilm.com
MATEO MORENO recently won a bet on who could hold their breath the longest underwater. He won the bet, having beat local loudmouth Jimmy "Thunderbird" Thomas with a record breaking "fourteen minutes." True, part of that time was him unconscious and the other part was him being revived, but he still counts it, and is now $20 richer. Take THAT Thunderbird! He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.