Review of King of California

Review: King of California

At this point in time, Michael Douglas’s celebrity is so buried under his marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones that his even his random appearances in the You, Me, and Duprees of the world barely register. So it’s good to see him get out there and act once in a while, something we haven’t seen since we were spoiled with back to back turns in Traffic and Wonder Boys (both released in 2000). King of California harkens back to the latter film, with Douglas playing a jazz musician named Charlie who’s reunited with his daughter, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood), after a two-year stint in a mental institute. Charlie is cut from the same cloth as the crappy-yet-jovial fathers found in The Royal Tenenbaums and The Squid and The Whale. Eventually, he reels Miranda into a (literal) treasure hunt, in search of Spanish artifacts that are to be found, if calculations are correct, directly below a Costco. The problem with all this that for the first third of its running time, the film isn’t sure how to juggle between the Californian money shots reminiscent of Sideways (Alexander Payne produces) and the straight-faced lunacy of the Wes Anderson films that inspire it. (Charlie’s old band member, Pepper, stands-in for Kumar Pallana.) Nonetheless, the film does begin to build momentum and reaches an emotional payoff that maybe even exceeds its influences.

Posted on 09/13/07 by: calmac 10:18 PM