The King of Staten Island

I decided to do something new this week: A rented a brand new film. Yes, it did cost me 20 bucks which I could have used to go out and get a nice, rare meal in these troubled times. Instead I decided to be a more serious, dedicated movie reviewer and rented The King of Staten Island. I saw the trailer for this movie over a month ago in an ad on Youtube and unlike most other ads where I decided to skip it (like almost everyone does) I sat staring at the trailer with an odd fascination. I still don't know why I did it, but after watching it I had an odd excitement for this movie.

The film stars Pete Davidson as Scott Carlin, a 24-year old guy with ADHD who wants to one day be a tattoo artist. He has spent 17 years of his life with just his mom and sister for company because his dad, a fire fighter, died when he was little. When his sister leaves for college and leaves him and mother on their own she encounters another firefighter and the two begin to date. Scott, unable to deal with his father's loss after all this time, is very hateful towards this new man. But life is ever changing and he has to begin to let go of the past and become a better person.

Now I know what I was getting myself into when I saw the trailer and how this was going to be a comedy with some romance in it and a kid who can't get over the past. I get that. I've seen it used a lot in films where the main character is a lot younger and the story is more silly. With The King of Staten Island though it's more serious and kind of bleak in some ways. However with all the craziness of the world right now with cops and their unending cruelty towards anybody, especially African Americans, who dare do as much as walk across their path, combined with the COVID-19 outbreak, I wanted to escape this reality and experience some drama that is a lot less depressing and horrifying. I got that with this movie and had a decent time watching it.

This movie is inspired by Pete Davidson's childhood and how his father's death during 9/11 deeply damaged him mentally. He became very hostile and had some suicidal tendencies and it took a lot for him to gain a better mental state. That's a good story to type of story to tell and I applaud the film for diving into a character who's suffered for so long and try and keep it realistic. I'll go into it later, but there were some moments where I really cared about the characters in the story and the brighter moments stuck with me.

However, my biggest issue with the movie is the main character. Again I know the type of story they're trying to tell, it's been told before. But if you have a character who isn't not in the best mental state you need portray this character with a positive or relatable traits that the audience will be able to connect with. In my opinion Scott is most likely not going to be an enjoyable character to watch in this movie. Traits like him being kind of a bum, a weed smoker, cowardly, and unwilling to change when others are trying to help him can be accepted in a character like him. But you also need to show him every now and then in a position of vulnerability, like him breaking down when he looks at the shrine for his father or when things go wrong he feels powerless. Instead, throughout a majority of the movie, he yells back at people who are trying to help him and rejects their assistance.

The first 20 minutes of the film I was wondering to myself, "Is this asshole the guy I have to care about for this whole movie?" He was smoking pot, laughing over jokes that his dad has been dead for years, and felt confused as to why women wouldn't want to watch films or be a part of events like The Purge. Then the way he ignores how much his family, friends, and love interest worry about him made me glower at him through the screen. There's one point in the film where Scott needs a place to stay and he goes to some friends who are in jail and when they're like, "Hey thanks for coming to see me, that's really nice of you," he basically responds with, "Hey no problem man. Sooooooo... can I crash at your place for a while?" If the film showed his positive traits more often, like how he can have a good heart in him, his artistic abilities, or something else, I would have cared for his character more. But no, most of the time he's extremely unlikable and I laughed and cheered when somebody punched him or put him in his place, which is a failure of making the audience try and make us care for a main character.

Now I'm not going to tank this review over one performance. First off, his character does improve over time and I did begin to care about him more as the film progressed. Second, I can see that Pete Davidson was trying with his performance, I could see him putting in a lot of effort and heart into his role. Third, there are probably people out there that have experienced similar situations that Scott has gone through and have mostly been very violent in how they have handled it. I wasn't expecting Scott to, at the end of the film, suddenly be all nice and polite and wear a nice suit and have a professional job. Not everyone is likeable in real life, some people can be jerks, and completely changing your fortune is an incredibly rare thing to do. It's only through change or an outside force or party that they can develop and get over their traumatic experiences.

This is where the rest of the cast come in and I definitely enjoyed them. Marisa Tomei as Scott's mother was great casting, along with Bill Burr as Ray, the firefighter she starts to date. They had great chemistry with one another and I there was pretty good romance between the two. I found Ray to be my favorite character in the movie because he did push Scott to change and he while he wasn't perfect person he had some great traits I could get behind. That and the fact he upsets Scott's perfect world and forces him to adapt is great. Scott's mother eventually gets that in her as well through her interactions with Ray and forces him to change. Honestly a lot of the characters added some great moments in the story and it kind of stinks I enjoyed them more than the main character, but I'm not going to lie a lot of them were great fun to watch.

This leads me to what the film was trying to tell the audience to keep an open mind and think about how our own actions affect other people. There are moments in the film where Scott is always stuck in his negative thoughts and feelings and when he tries to keep himself in this "depression pit" he goes for people who are negative, like an echo chamber. That leads to more trouble for people affected by Scott's actions and comes around to hit him right back. These characters, and more, when Scott was messing around or just doing bad things, kept on worrying about him and they told him that he needs to take responsibility because he's kind of a burden, but they care about him enough that if he doesn't take care of himself he's going to always be miserable. This is a great idea to take away from this movie. You can't goof around forever and ignore your problems, we all have to eventually grow up and stop being a burden on people. That's life and we have to face it and what it's thrown as us already.

Now I do have another big problem with the movie and that's the writing. Not just the way Scott was written, but how some plot points could have been better executed or been removed entirely. The open scene for instance, where Scott is driving, closed his eyes for some random reason, almost crashes his car, then keeps saying sorry to himself never comes back again the film. In fact I don't think he even owns his own car in the movie, so what was that about? What was the importance of that? There were multiple moments and small characters that I felt could have been handled better or even taken out. They didn't really add much to the story or the characters. The film is over 2 hours long and that's long, especially for this type of drama. I would definitely have removed some parts from the film if I was in the editing room.

Other than that the cinematography was pretty good, the sets were nice, and got some great comedic moments. Now I did laugh the most from Scott being one-upped by others, but I know other people will get more laughs from some of the dialogue. It just felt very natural and that might also have something to do with how the cast seemed to have great chemistry with one another. Steve Buscemi as the lead fire fighter was excellent in connecting with his fellow fire fighter characters, as well as Scott, and Bel Powley as Scott's love interest was very enjoyable to watch on screen, especially with how hard she tried to get it in Scott's head that she likes him as more than a friend. Though Scott was blind as a bat not to notice how she acted towards him.

In the end The King of Staten Island was a decent film. I don't know if it's one that people will keep going back to watch, especially with the main character being a complete asshole, but I got enough enjoyment that I think when it's available for free on streaming services you might want to give it a go. It's got a great cast and characters, some pretty good comedy, and a nice message. Just be ready for a whole truck full of douchebag when you do.

Tentative Score: 6.5/10

Definitive Score: 6.25/10

I don't think I'm going to be doing another one of these brand new movie reviews for a long while if they're going to be costing me 20 because that's quite a risky amount for a new film. I really hope theaters open back up soon.