It turns out that the honey business isn't as sweet as it sounds: In the new movie “The Rivals of Amziah King,” beekeepers steal from each other, poison rivals' insects and rip folk off. “It’s not full of kind people,” the title character warns.
“The Rivals of Amziah King” isn't as sweet as it thinks it is, either. Instead of picking a single variety to explore, the movie is a maddening mishmash of genres — blending Quentin Tarantino's sudden brutality, a coming-of-age tale, a heist flick, a revenge fantasy and a sweet, music-filled country hoedown.
Matthew McConaughey returns to the big screen playing the title character in what can only be called Matthew-McConaughey-turned-up-to-11 mode, pure Cheshire Cat smile, rascally wink and buttery, Southern gentlemanly charm. Suspenders and scruff on, cowboy boots snug, McConaughey is the one who makes everyone's life instantly better just by showing up.
Written by Andrew Patterson and James Montague and directed by Patterson, “The Rivals of Amziah King” follows McConaughey's honey-producing King as he negotiates his patch of rural Oklahoma until he inexplicably leaves the movie at the hour mark and hands it off to Angelina LookingGlass, making her film debut.
We meet King ordering chicken fried steak sandwiches and cherry Cokes as he plays the banjo in a quartet of musicians at a beloved food joint. That gets interrupted when authorities need his knowledge to find out who abandoned $250,000 worth of honey barrels on the road and King starts to investigate. Then someone gets a chunk of their skull — including ponytail — ripped off in an industrial accident and that takes over. Settle in, the whiplash is just beginning.
King soon connects with his former foster daughter — that's LookingGlass, fierce and preternaturally grounded — who he gets to mansplain in the local ways, like what to eat at the potluck (“There's a story in every dish”), life lessons (“Patience is better than being smart”) and beekeeping (“Every queen is a survivor”). Bees here, if you didn't already get from the clunky writing, represent community, sharing and caring.
Cinematographer M.I. Littin-Menz's camera techniques never settle down in this movie, like a puppy forever pulling on its leash. Early sequences employ frozen shots irritatingly dropped into the mix and later we have furious close-ups, quick cuts, quirky flashbacks, ethereal river sequences and lingering poetic images of close-up bees like from a documentary, a kinetic approach that seems not to have much faith in the actual story keeping viewers' interest alive. Music supervisor Winslow Bright swamps many scenes with loud choirs, loud banjo and loud strings.
Maybe that's because as soon as you've settled down for one genre, it gets hijacked by the next. Warm and extended moments of communal song — the great T Bone Burnett had a hand in some of the outstanding Americana tunes like “Quill” with McConaughey exuberant, and “Johnny Come Outside” — are undercut by seeing kids smash their heads on school bus roofs or a cool Western-like tracking of a honey-stealing local rascal that is marred by his horrific, boiling-to-death murder. There are so many montages of honey production that viewers may qualify for a beekeeping certificate.
Great turns are produced by Kurt Russell as a lethal local kingpin who schmoozes his way past the law, and Owen Teague, a former Marine who knows how to plan a theft with military precision, mostly shirtless. One brazen theft here is of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and, however you liked that movie, you realize now how hard it was to actually pull off.
Patterson likes to remind viewers of his Oklahoma bona fides, but much of the overlong movie was shot in Alabama. And that hints at what's wrong with “The Rivals of Amziah King” — it just doesn't feel authentic, either in place or in story. Forget honey, it sort of leaves a vinegary taste behind.
“The Rivals of Amziah King,” a Black Bear release that hits theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “language and some grisly images.” Running time: 130 minutes. Two stars out of four.
