Jacob King, a mysterious outsider from South Africa, arrives in Los Angeles to look for his missing younger sister.Jacob King, a mysterious outsider from South Africa, arrives in Los Angeles to look for his missing younger sister.Jacob King, a mysterious outsider from South Africa, arrives in Los Angeles to look for his missing younger sister.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaChadwick Boseman stated in an interview that he based his accent he uses for the Marvel character Black Panther from a film he was working on where he played a man from South Africa. This is the film to which he was referring.
- GoofsTowards the end of the film when Jacob is giving a goodbye sendoff to Kelly and her daughter on the bridge before they get on the bus, there are no official charter bus stops on the 6th Street Viaduct Bridge or any Los Angeles bridges (which has since been demolished) Only in emergencies are unofficial stops made. This was solely created for the movie.
- Quotes
[first lines]
Woman: [on voice message, crying] Jacob, it's Bianca. I'm in trouble. I need your help, please. I have something they want. Jacob, I don't know what to do. Please, call me.
- ConnectionsFeatured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Chadwick Boseman Movie Moments We Love (2020)
Featured review
When it hits, it hits... but sometimes it misses
Ooh boy, here's a toughie.
Chadwick Boseman, we barely knew ye. Two seconds after you broke onto the A List, you left us all in shock when you departed this world, the consensus being that it was well before your time. While arguments can be made one way or the other about such things, one thing is certain:
You made an impact.
MESSAGE FROM THE KING is not the best movie I have ever seen, unfortunately. It has pacing issues, continuity problems, and questionable dialogue choices. All that being said, Chadwick steals every scene with his powerful performance, and at least that's worth something.
It's not all bad. A man from South Africa comes to Los Angeles, searching for what happened to his missing sister. Without spoiling too much of the film, he finds out, and then wants to settle scores for what has happened.
In an attempt to create an original plot, some things get lost. There is a scent of mystery here, well played by the creators... we don't know who Jacob King is, or WHAT he is, beyond being a loving sibling who's well beyond furious as to the events as they unfold, and that part of the film works fine. In an effort to keep the mystery going, we are given a seedy, not terribly friendly portrait of Los Angeles life, and the downfalls some who go looking for dreams fall into.
Teresa Palmer plays a kindly neighbor, one who is involved in doing whatever is necessary to keep the roof over her and her daughter's heads. There is chemistry here, at first easily dismissed, but I have to speak about a scene which is my favorite of the film, in which she surprises him in a diner, sits down with him, and thanks him for not being the same as everyone else she's met since she fell into the luring trap of Hollywood. The exchange between the two of them is touching, heartfelt, heart wrenching, and immediately breathes life into what could have been easily written off as a simple revenge movie.
The level of violence here is high, perhaps a bit too high in certain scenes. Violence done realistically is rarely a treat to the eyes... I remember a scene from DRIVE in which a woman's head is taken off with a shotgun blast and you can see every gory detail of brain, blood, and bone as her head explodes in slow motion, and I find it jarring every time I see the movie. It doesn't need to be there, and sometimes in this film the violence comes off in a similar fashion.
I also mentioned the dialogue before... there's a lot of empty words thrown in the usual manner of macho bull and cliched banter. Alfred Molina and Luke Evans, specifically, have the worst lines to spout here, as they have to shout pointless insults back and forth at each other that only serve to take up time, instead of entertain us or keep the plot moving.
There's also a few plot twists that seem overly heavy, once again done for the sake of originality but lacking in a real sense of logic or reasoning that you accept just because you don't really have any other choice once you get into the parts of the movie that really work... you kind of just have to roll with the punches.
All in all, it's not bad. If you love and miss Chadwick, give it a roll. It's not as good as PANTHER. I suppose, in the end, when we remember him, nothing he did is going to compare with that.
Godspeed, Mr. Boseman. You will be missed.
Chadwick Boseman, we barely knew ye. Two seconds after you broke onto the A List, you left us all in shock when you departed this world, the consensus being that it was well before your time. While arguments can be made one way or the other about such things, one thing is certain:
You made an impact.
MESSAGE FROM THE KING is not the best movie I have ever seen, unfortunately. It has pacing issues, continuity problems, and questionable dialogue choices. All that being said, Chadwick steals every scene with his powerful performance, and at least that's worth something.
It's not all bad. A man from South Africa comes to Los Angeles, searching for what happened to his missing sister. Without spoiling too much of the film, he finds out, and then wants to settle scores for what has happened.
In an attempt to create an original plot, some things get lost. There is a scent of mystery here, well played by the creators... we don't know who Jacob King is, or WHAT he is, beyond being a loving sibling who's well beyond furious as to the events as they unfold, and that part of the film works fine. In an effort to keep the mystery going, we are given a seedy, not terribly friendly portrait of Los Angeles life, and the downfalls some who go looking for dreams fall into.
Teresa Palmer plays a kindly neighbor, one who is involved in doing whatever is necessary to keep the roof over her and her daughter's heads. There is chemistry here, at first easily dismissed, but I have to speak about a scene which is my favorite of the film, in which she surprises him in a diner, sits down with him, and thanks him for not being the same as everyone else she's met since she fell into the luring trap of Hollywood. The exchange between the two of them is touching, heartfelt, heart wrenching, and immediately breathes life into what could have been easily written off as a simple revenge movie.
The level of violence here is high, perhaps a bit too high in certain scenes. Violence done realistically is rarely a treat to the eyes... I remember a scene from DRIVE in which a woman's head is taken off with a shotgun blast and you can see every gory detail of brain, blood, and bone as her head explodes in slow motion, and I find it jarring every time I see the movie. It doesn't need to be there, and sometimes in this film the violence comes off in a similar fashion.
I also mentioned the dialogue before... there's a lot of empty words thrown in the usual manner of macho bull and cliched banter. Alfred Molina and Luke Evans, specifically, have the worst lines to spout here, as they have to shout pointless insults back and forth at each other that only serve to take up time, instead of entertain us or keep the plot moving.
There's also a few plot twists that seem overly heavy, once again done for the sake of originality but lacking in a real sense of logic or reasoning that you accept just because you don't really have any other choice once you get into the parts of the movie that really work... you kind of just have to roll with the punches.
All in all, it's not bad. If you love and miss Chadwick, give it a roll. It's not as good as PANTHER. I suppose, in the end, when we remember him, nothing he did is going to compare with that.
Godspeed, Mr. Boseman. You will be missed.
helpful•100
- vesil_vesalier
- Sep 21, 2020
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- Thông Điệp Từ Nhà Vua
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $10,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $315,132
- Runtime1 hour 42 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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![Message from the King (2016)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZTJlNGVhZjUtYjJhZC00ZTRiLWI0YTgtNzdlNWJhZWEwNTAzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjgzMTA2NzY@._V1_QL75_UY133_CR2,0,90,133_.jpg)