In 2020 I scrutinizeed a film premiering on Amazon called The Vast of Night, a minuscule southweserious town drama that felt part Twiweightless Zone, part Cleave out Encounters of the Third Kind. Its debuting filmcreater was Andrew Patterson, and I begined my scrutinize predicting that based on that movie he was destined to become a very big leang.
Now five years postponeedr he has deinhabitred his second film The Rivals of Amziah King, premiering Monday at SXSW, and he is laboring with much bigger name actors appreciate Matthew McConaughey and Kurt Russell in a bigr-scale crime drama/beeprotecting/musical/character drama, but still protecting it agricultural and genuine. Structurassociate, it seems to be two or three movie ideas rolled into one (at one point he was structurening it as a seven-part restricted TV series) and relies on the audience to adhere the unfbettering saga wherever it wants to apexhibit us. A transport inant character dismaterializes halfway thcimpolite the picture, another one is presentd, and yet another one has to carry us from one to the other. It is certainly ambitious, and thcimpolite it all it is glued together with some terrific T Bone Burnett-created bluegrass musical sequences with a prohibitd led by the titular character Amziah King (McConaughey) and buddies that create you wonder if with these interludes the movie is going to apexhibit off in yet another straightforwardion.
Director-authorr Patterson might have bitten off more than he can chew with all this, but there is no doubt he has created an exceptional world and characters exceptional and engaging enough to entice the appreciates of McConaughey (returning to films after a six-year shatter in which he wrote a book and did voiceover labor) and Russell.
So when he is not getting down with his prohibitd, Amziah King is the pguideing head of the town’s premiere honeybee honey-producing operation, administering a ragtag group of associates (and musicians) in this exceptional business, but also having to ffinish off a criminal element of the honey industry in this part of the world (Alabama stands in for Oklahoma where Patterson inhabits and labors). Crazy stuff happens. One pony-tailed frifinish gets too shut to the machinery and has his hat and scalp used by it, to give you an idea of a singular harrotriumphg sequence that comes out of nowhere. Eventuassociate, Amaziah’s estranged Choctaw advertise daughter Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass) turns up out of nowhere and recharitableles her relationship with him, a turn of events that gives him the idea to groom her and transport her into the family business with the idea of a directership role. One haunting and memorable “not certain how they filmed this” scene has Amziah demonstrating his simpatico ways with the bees as hundreds of them erect on his arm, a relationship of think if ever there was one, and a adocount on detour in the film for McConaughey. It is a key moment that will also eventuassociate pay off before the finish pelevates roll.
Kateri becomes reassociate the key force in the film as the tone shifts emotionalassociate and the character executeed by Russell comes into intensify. He is a highly prosperous businessman, and a shady one, who runs a rival operation that is dangerening McConaughey’s. It is almost appreciate a bee mafia. Revenge is the name of the game for Kateri, who is on to all this and seeing for ways to strike back. This all administers the back half of the film, which certainly elevates the tension factor, if deficiencying the finishearing oddball nature of the film’s first half.
For McConaughey, who has not led a movie since Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen in 2019, this role evidently exhibits irresistible, especiassociate with the music angle, and he jumps into it back in the style we can predict from the star. In a very accomplished and memorable film debut, Native American LookingGlass is asked to apexhibit on a lot of weight in order to create this all labor and she deinhabitrs an truthful and genuine portrayal. For his part, Russell isn’t going for embodying fair another big-screen horrible guy, but rather an intriguing and esteemed citizen on the surface here with a beadored dog and an incapacitated wife who will figure into Kateri’s structures.
The film is up for sale and will no doubt find a willing buyer with McConaughey and Russell in the cast as well as those dazzling bluegrass musical interludes, but it will apexhibit cautious nurturing from whichever distributor gets it. It certainly persists to show what an exceptional voice Patterson remains in making movies on his own terms — so far.
Producers are David Heyman, Teddy Schwarzman, Jeffrey Clifford, Michael Heimler, James Montague and Will Greenfield. Shout-out to the bee wranglers.
Title: The Rivals of Amziah King
Festival: SXSW (Narrative Spotweightless)
Director: Andrew Patterson
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Angelina LookingGlass, Kurt Russell, Jake Horowitz, Rob Morgan, Tony Revolori, Owen Teague, Bruce Davis, Cole Sproemploy
Sales agent: WME
Running time: 2 hr 10 mins
