King Richard

Grade: B

Will Smith tends to specialize in playing characters who persuade and coach. I remember him winning over the execs in the office in The Pursuit of Happyness, mentoring golf in The Legend of Bagger Vance, and not letting Gene Hackman intimidate him in Enemy of the State. In King Richard, he is effective as the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, and does what he so frequently does well: big talking and convincing, to the point where I might uncomfortably mutter phrases like “Ohh, don’t do that. Just cool it for now. Shut up.”

I’ve never followed much tennis, but I’d vaguely heard of Serena Williams in passing. Director Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men) – working from a script by Zach Baylin, who makes his feature film debut as a writer – successfully takes me into that world of rackets, green balls, chest-high nets, and “love.” Smith’s Richard is a firm taskmaster of a father, but yields strong results from his 5 children. They are a tight-knit family, get along, do well in school, and willingly go with him to the local court every day, rain or shine, to practice tennis. He has the kind of obsessive determination and preoccupation with his daughters becoming the best tennis athletes in the world that made me wonder if he was being the equivalent of a soccer mom or stage mom. But at least two of the daughters, Venus and Serena, share his passion, and want it for themselves, not to appease dad.

They become good. Really very good. And then comes a development that I thought was going to veer us into a courtroom drama/crime thriller about a falsely accused protagonist. Richard follows a man who has been bullying him at the tennis court to the parking lot of a liquor store. He stands at a distance with a gun and unclear intentions, when the bully is abruptly killed in a drive-by shooting while the rest of his gang is inside. Nothing really comes of that, and we’re back to the sports story. Richard is able to finagle his way into getting some old pros at a fancy predominantly caucasian club to coach his daughters. One thing leads to another, and before we know it, the family is uprooted from Compton to a “full ride” in Florida, with an RV, a nice house, and free unlimited lessons from the pros.

One of them is Paul Cohen. I saw him, and knew it was either Tony Goldwyn or Christopher McDonald. I confuse those two actors all the time – both had the market for slimy douchey white villains cornered in the 1990s. Goldwyn played the emotionally detached social worker in the TV movie The Boys Next Door, and when his character died in Ghost, he didn’t get the angels Patrick Swayze got. McDonald was Shooter McGavin, Adam Sandler’s golf nemesis in Happy Gilmore, and was Darryl Hannah’s soon-to-be-ex in Grumpy Old Men. Anyway, it’s Goldwyn in King Richard, playing Paul Cohen. Nice to see him again. Jon Bernthal does memorable work as Rick Macci, the coach in Florida. Think Michael J. Fox as a tennis instructor with a mustache and his Family Ties hairdo.

Performances and filmmaking style are compelling across the board. The lovely locations and the soundtrack help set an enjoyable tone. Aunjanue Ellis as Smith’s wife, Saniyya Sidney as Venus, and of course Smith all have opportunities to shine. The title King Richard sounds like it might be a modern retelling of a Shakespeare history play. That’s what I first thought of. But for a feel-good biopic sports movie, it’s pretty darn solid.

Grade: B