Kings (2007)

Sick Product of a Sick System

One of my all time favorites.

Expected more

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I love any good Irish film and really want to see this. When I first saw the writeup on a few different sites I decided to look into it before I got the movie. And after reading everyones comments Im even more confused. Im guessing the movie is not spoken in English? I've always thought the Irish spoke English with an Irish accent. However, everyone's comments say differently. To make this even more confusing, someone commented that they wanted the movie spoken in Irish and not English. Yet they wrote there comment in English.... IM CONFUSED.Could someone clarify if this is in fact English with an Irish accent or is there some language I don't know about. Also if it is not spoken in English, could someone verify if the "English version" of the movie has an alternate title here in the US.Thank you

Bigtraveller (sic) sounds like a big idiot....Kings Abu ! Whenever I see Colm Meaney in anything, I get a warm, fuzzy feeling. It may be the Irish in me coming out -- Meaney was born in Dublin, Ireland -- but it's more likely a residue of his role as Chief Miles O'Brien in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He instantly came across as dignified yet combustible. If he'd been born 50 years earlier, he would have been an ideal supporting character in a ton of classic Hollywood movies.Eventually I discovered some of his earlier work (The Commitments and The Snapper, to name two good ones) and grew to appreciate his rich dramatic abilities. These dramatic abilities are on full display in Kings. The Film was nominated for a record 14 nominations in the IFTAS. Meaney for best supporting actor. Kicks picked up 5, The film which has been submitted by Ireland as their official entrant in the race for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, according to Variety. Kings is based on the play The Kings of Kilburn Road by Irish playwright Jimmy Murphy; multi award winning industry vet Tom Collins wrote the script and produced and directed. The premise is that six men left Ireland for London in search of their fortune. Thirty years have passed with none of their dreams being realized, a point driven home when one of the group dies and the others reunite for his wake. Favourably reviewing the film earlier this year, Jay Weissberg of Variety wrote: "Though unable to completely shed its theatrical origins, Tom Collins' Kings offers a trenchant look at the recent Irish immigrant experience." Weissberg noted that the film is the first bilingual picture produced in Ireland, with the cast speaking a mixture of Irish Gaelic and English.The film had its first public screening at TIFF on Wednesday night; it plays again on Friday morning, September 14. Kings is also scheduled to screen at the Director's Guild of America Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday, September 28, as part of the Directors Finders Series 2007. The latter screening is intended as a showcase for American distributors.Since then it has had a successful theatrical release in the USA and picked up more awards.

So I was expecting more than I got. Workman like but not the best of Irish cinema.I would agree that the best performance was by 'Git' by a long chalk. In the roles Jap and Joe I wonder how it would have played with actors swapped.I had not been aware it was an adapted play but it was painfully obvious as the film crept on.I was most unimpressed with the camera jittery work in the back bar room scene. I can't believe the director etc. don't suffer in extremis each time they see it. That is not is say the rest of the camera work was bad it was fine.Surely only the Irish could have such nice clean alcoholics. Jap gingerly sprawling in an alleyway whilst remarkably sober was most gentil. Such a clean well shaven drunk, it is a wonder the polis didn't ask if they would like their chauffeur alerted, to take them home. Did they really take umpteen hours to drink a 2 litre bottle of cider and they stayed drunk? We must be told the name of this potent brew! As for the conga line of "get your shirts off lads and let's bond" and let's sing a good old rebel song (for of course all oirish are rebels even after 30 yrs in England-shure they're only lads at heart). As they dance through the pub and out into the street with not a comment from anyone in the pub, well it is all so believable. Then the dapper Jap puts his shirt on again now he has bonded.Of course the Oirish screen writers gave it an award.The film had it's moments of poignancy and truth but they were sacrificed to the altar/stage of Irish caricatures. Not too far really from the semtex toting/Irish (extracted?) dancing thug of 'Shameless' played by Sean Gilder. But with Shameless we know where the writer is coming from and we are both entertained and educated by the revelations of human life. King's does not have the often delicate touch of life seen in shameless.The director struggled with the script and its adaptation for screen. He lost the intimacy that drink brings and the very dark humour we Irish have in abundance. Standing around in an empty room was not good cinema.Was it awful, No. Would I watch it again, never.

It is possible that the major narrative of the twenty-first century will be that of immigration. With transnational movement becoming ever more common, the distances between us shrink both geographically and socially as every immigrant has a compelling individual story to share. Kings is the fertile ground where six of these stories take root, grow and intertwine. It is the first major bilingual (Irish Gaelic and English) Irish production.In the seventies, six ambitious and energetic young men – friends and relatives – left Ireland for London with an eye to making their fortunes and eventually returning home in a blaze of glory. Like so many before them, they found work in the construction industry, toiling to build the very cities that often remained cold and unwelcoming to them. When we meet the men, it is nearly thirty years after their arrival, and one of them has died under terrible circumstances.It is a deeply held tradition that they hold a wake for the passing of their friend, named Jackie. What makes this occasion even more tearful is that the friends haven't followed the path they originally had set out for themselves. They have not enjoyed the same fortunes or even returned to Ireland victoriously as planned. When they finally meet to honour Jackie, drink and sadness make it inevitable that some men will take up the grievances and disappointments of the past, all the while maintaining the illusion that they have a future. In tragic situations like these, nostalgia is particularly far from the cold, hard truth.In addition to sketching a fine sense of place, director Tom Collins elicits remarkable performances from each member of his strong cast, particularly the great Colm Meaney as Joe, a man who left behind his old Irish life for good, but at a heavy cost. These skillful actors capture all the complex and heart-rending subtleties of the immigrant experience. Through the bonds and misfires of male friendship, Kings sympathetically portrays a circle who never actually leave their homeland in either custom or commitment.Jane Schoettle