don_juan All in all I liked the movie, which was a good old fashioned payback movie. Man avenging a loved one. *SPOILERS* However, some things leave you confused. Firstly, the main character's sister is tortured, beaten and murdered, and you never really find out why this overkill. You do find out why the bad guys want her out of the way, but not why the hatred with which she was killed (which the killers were specifically instructed to do). Secondly, there are numerous bad guys (the dentist gangster, the movie producer, the local hoods, the politician), and you don't fully find out who is working. Thirdly, the "rescue" of Armande, and him running away, leaves you with a "what? What happened? Is that it?" feeling. It seems like the filmmakers tried to have a shocking reveal similar to 8mm, but in my opinion they failed to deliver. The actions scenes are quite good though. I give it a 6/10.

diggus doggus i wish i could show this film to all the haters who downvoted my review of Aftermath.Message From The King is a very personal take on the revenge film genre, kind of similar to Taken, but less Hollywood. The message, to be clear, is pain.Chadwick Boseman plays King, a black man from South Africa who shows up in the US to visit his sister, who is apparently living there.You can immediately understand that while the two siblings were close, they must have had some family issues that have now prevented from keeping close still. This is done without words, just by Acting(tm).King finds his sister's roommate, and we immediately understand that something bad has happened, she must have fallen in with the wrong crowd.King, who seems to be a young man of little means, proves himself to be a spectacular investigator and soon finds out what has happened and who needs some punishment. And he does bring on the bad people a great good deal of punishment, but not in a Hollywood "fire and brimstone" kind of way, but rather closer to the way you had that fight in highschool and nothing went as planned but in the end you won and the other guy lost.THIS is how you do grief. THIS is how you do real in a film. Boseman puts in some real effort and the result is tangible, helped by the fantastic direction and camera-work that frame the emotions rather than the script. Message From the King is a bit limited in scope, true. Guy goes on revenge. OK, but what is remarkable is that it uses good filmmaking and acting techniques to advance the story, instead of "good guy dodges bullets, bad guy's car explodes", which is, in my opinion, the reason why the rating is so low.Watch this film. If you don't like it, you'll know exactly what type of movie-goer you are.My vote: a solid 7.5/10 and hopefully we'll see more of Boseman.

theredandwhitekey This movie shows you what cinema should look like. This old craft of making movies with tempo, cinematography, editing and score is deprived of all imprints of judgement, opinion or the director's indulging in his pretentious personality as many directors strive to do these days; it seems that the director has nothing to prove but only the commitment to telling a beautiful masterful story filmed with excellence and craftsmanship. The goal here is to learn what real cinema is. Everything serves the story, everything is well balanced. It's an exercise in genre and a director's pure intentions to making only cinema. You don't get pitiful emotion or euphoric fake bliss you only marvel in excellence. No shot is overrated, no emotion is fake. This is a work of a master. And these days masters are found in Europe. It brought me back to my film school days when I was in awe with the great directors of past and how they can create a work of art without the excesses of today's cinematic work that is riddled with uselessness and has no soul or beauty. Mind you, this is not a masterpiece, far from it; rather this is a lesson of what true cinema is... Watch it and be in awe...

travishouze When it comes to films with black leads, I try to never let representation cloud my judgement and always hope they have the ideal writing and direction working for the leads in their favor. I've been excited to see Chadwick Boseman raise from the TV show Lincoln Heights to playing T'Challa as Black Panther. After learning about this film Message from the King, I thought this film would at least be a good prelude to the few months waiting for Black Panther, however, I left severely underwhelmed that the Message brings.Chadwick Boseman plays Jacob King, a man traveling back from South Africa to search for his sister Bianca had gone missing and goes on a chase through those she knew personally for answers of her whereabouts and even resulting in violent acts in the process. Chadwick himself does fine in the role, as most of the time he is spent stoic and a man of few words. Luke Evans makes a surprise role connected to the antagonists, and while his cool persona helps the role, his character gets really annoying fast as a dentist where literally no character doesn't talk about their teeth while their around him. "You can really learn about a man when you see his teeth." That is a real line. In a movie that's supposed to be a action thriller.Another big issue is the pacing of this movie. Even at a 103 minute runtime, it takes entirely too long for any engaging action to occur (there's only 2 action scenes in the whole movie), and the plot and writing isn't engaging enough to warrant it's slow burn storytelling. But the film really flies off the rails in the third act with the main antagonist and you find out about his shady business involving someone young, it felt disgusting and really out of place for what the films main motivation.Message from the King was one I had hope for, but I found out halfway, this wouldn't leave a good impact. The direction and writing is choppy, despite some decent performances from Chadwick and Luke. I just feel King deserved better and I'm hoping I'm right in February.