Message from the King
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Message from the King |
| Country of production |
United Kingdom , France , Belgium |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2016 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Fabrice Du Welz |
| script |
Oliver Butcher , Stephen Cornwell |
| production | Stephen Cornwell, David Lancaster , Simon Cornwell |
| music |
Vincent Cahay , Felix Penny |
| camera | Monica Lenczewska |
| cut | Beatrice Sisul |
| occupation | |
| |
Message from the King is an American thriller directed by Fabrice Du Welz , which premiered on September 8, 2016 at the Toronto International Film Festival . The publication in Germany took place on August 4, 2017 on Netflix .
action
The South African Jacob King comes to Los Angeles as a tourist , but does not want to have fun in the "City of Angels", but rather to investigate the disappearance of his sister Bianca. Upon entry, he states that he is a taxi driver in Cape Town . Jacob rents a cheap and very shabby hotel. Then he looks for the last known address of his sister Bianca. Bianca's former neighbor Trish tells him that his sister no longer lives there and that she has not seen Bianca for a long time. His sister simply moved out with the stepson Armand without giving her new address. She had been separated from her husband Alex Zagosin for a long time. Trish gives Jacob a bag with some of Bianca's things and invites him to a party that evening.
Jacob visits the former landlady Mrs. Laslo. She tells him that his sister was always late with the rent payments and left the apartment in a neglected state. The move was organized by a certain Zico, who also paid the rent. Bianca was nice and pretty at the beginning, later she looked terrible, beaten and droned. The landlady gives Jacob a tip on where to find Zico.
There, in a car wash, Jacob meets several men. He asks her if there is a Zico here who might help him find his sister. The men are monosyllabic and dismissive and claim that there is no Zico. Jacob particularly noticed a Mediterranean-looking man.
Later in the hotel, Jacob finds a photo in Bianca's belongings that shows his sister and this very Mediterranean-looking man. So he's Zico, the man Mrs. Laslo told him about. In a notebook, Jacob finds a photo of Armand and a note about a dentist named Dr. Paul Wentworth, as well as his business card. There is also part of a grocery bag with the address of a Korean supermarket among his sister's belongings.
Jacob goes to this Korean supermarket and asks about his sister and the boy. You only recognize the boy, you don't know anything about the sister. Jacob is advised to give the morgue a try.
Jacob actually finds his dead sister in the morgue. Her body is horribly mutilated. Apparently she was tortured before she died. When asked if this was his sister, the shocked Jacob said no, although he recognized the tattoo on her arm without a doubt.
At the hotel, he was swiftly moved out of his room because only the porn channel worked there. Jacob moves into another room. His neighbor is Kelly with her daughter Boot.
Jacob procures a bicycle chain and visits the car wash a second time. He meets Zico and his cronies. In a short fierce fight, Jacob overpowers the men and drags the rather damaged Zico into an adjoining room. There he tries by force to get information about who Zico works for. But he does not reveal his clients. In the call list on Zico's cell phone, Jacob comes across the name Duke. He takes the cell phone.
Eventually Jacob shows up at Trish's party. Trish is left out and tries to seduce Jacob. But he'd rather talk to her about Bianca. He learns that Bianca and cocaine has taken and dealt with it. Trish says Bianca knew one of Zico's men, a certain Frankie. When Trish's friend surprises the two of them, Jacob has the opportunity to use Trish's cell phone to send a bogus message to Frankie: "We're celebrating. We need you."
A short time later, Frankie shows up at the party. He tells Jacob that he has not seen Bianca in a long time. He also denies being a coke dealer. Frankie eventually leaves the party and is met by Jacob shortly afterwards while he is on the phone in his car. Jacob beats Frankie with the bicycle chain and learns that Zico works for Duke and that Bianca had something that Duke wanted too. Jacob then takes all of the cocaine from Frankie and tells Frankie to tell Duke.
Jacob asks his roommate to take care of his luggage and borrows her car. With that he drives to Trish and learns that Alex and Bianca have always had arguments and that Alex was gone one day. Bianca gave Trish a bag with her belongings. She was afraid of something. Jacob drives to the practice of the dentist Dr. Wentworth and asks him about his sister. The dentist says he doesn't know anything about her. After this appointment, Jacob follows the dentist with the car. He visits the politician Leary to confess that he is in trouble and that Jacob must be eliminated. Leary gives the dentist the phone number of two killers. For their job, Wentworth should pay them a total of $ 50,000. Wentworth then goes to the film producer Mike Preston to demand that money and much more from him - a total of $ 850,000. Jacob has continued to follow the dentist and sneaks into Preston's property. He sees Armand there too.
On the way back to the hotel, Jacob is stopped in Kelly's car by two policemen and put into a police car. The two men turn out to be hired killers. Jacob manages to escape from a stop in a traffic jam. But the two gangsters catch up with him on foot and beat him with batons. One of the two wants to get the car, the other killer guards the injured Jacob. A garbage man appears and the killer is distracted for a few moments, with Jacob finally being able to escape. The two killers agree to keep this from their client and instead claim to have done the job.
Once at the motel, Kelly takes care of the injured Jacob. In Bianca's estate, Jacob finds a memory card and asks the Korean supermarket to play the file on it. The video on the card is encrypted, but Jacob can tell from the mutilated audio and video data that it is apparently a porno in which his sister also starred.
Jacob gets all the ingredients to build a pipe bomb , which he stows in a travel bag. He breaks into Preston's house, hands Preston the memory card and forces Preston to play the video. Jacob now finally realizes that his sister is on the video and that Preston is sexually abusing Armand. Preston admits that that's why Bianca died. Claiming to give Armand a good life despite the abuse, he offers Jacob the $ 750,000 and opens his safe. With a pistol deposited in it, he surprisingly threatens Jacob. However, he can remove the weapon from Preston. Jacob then tied up and gagged Preston and his assistant and lured Wentworth into Preston's house. He also calls Duke and lures him to Preston's estate too. Then he shoots Preston in disgust. Jacob packs a large part of the money lying around for himself, covers a part of the bomb hidden in his pocket, displays it as bait and then tries to get Armand to safety. However, he defends himself so that Jacob has to drag him into the car by force.
Wentworth arrives and sees the shot Preston and all the money in the waiting bag. The dentist stabs Preston's assistant to kill him as a witness. He grabs his bag and is about to leave the house when he suddenly faces Duke. Both get into Duke's car, and when the bag is opened, the bomb detonates.
Back at the hotel, Jacob is suddenly attacked by Zico, but with the help of Kelly he can repel the attack and kill Zico. In the meantime, Armand escapes and is no longer seen.
The next day, Jacob said goodbye to Kelly and her daughter at a greyhound bus station. When mother and daughter are on the bus to Albuquerque, Kelly opens her travel bag and discovers the amount of money in it.
Jacob flies back to Cape Town. Once there, it becomes clear that Jacob is not a taxi driver from Cape Town, but a detective from the South African police. When asked about his sister, whom he allegedly visited on his vacation, Jacob replies to his colleagues that she is fine.
production
The director was the Belgian Fabrice Du Welz , who has lived in the USA for a long time and, as an immigrant European, can bring his own experiences to the film, how the city in which the film is set appears in the eyes of an outsider and how one feels feels there as an outsider. The screenplay for the film was written by Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell . Chadwick Boseman took on the lead role of Jacob King.
The film was shot in Glendale in the greater Los Angeles area . The film music was composed by Vincent Cahay and Felix Penny . The film composer Matthias Weber , who was most recently awarded at the Austrian Film Prize 2015 for his work on the film Das sinstere Tal and was initially intended for this task, was ultimately the film's musical advisor.
The film premiered on September 8, 2016 at the Toronto International Film Festival . The film was released in French cinemas on May 10, 2017, and has been available on Netflix in Germany since August 4, 2017.
Awards
California on Location Awards 2015
- Nomination for Location Team of the Year - Independent Film
Web links
- Message from the King in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Message from the King In: tiff.net. Retrieved August 28, 2016.
- ↑ Austrian Film Prize 2015 . Accessed January 29, 2015.
- ↑ Matthias Weber to Score 'Message from the King' In: filmmusicreporter.com, October 8, 2015.