The King Of Staten Island (2020) Review

This film hit demand last week and I have now had the chance to watch The King Of Staten Island and here is my review for it. The premise of the film sees A 24 year old weed smoker Tatooist with no ambition have to face his grief and try and make a step forward in his future.

Main Character

I feel that Pete Davidson is one of those people that comes across as either a love or hate mentality and honestly I find him really funny and I thought he really worked for this film. Yes he basically plays himself, but I found him really interesting here and I felt plenty of sympathy for him as a character. I like his dark humour here and it is clearly seen as a defence mechanism which just adds to his performance and character. 

Supporting Characters

Marisa Tomei plays his mother in the film and she is fantastic, the chemistry the two of them have together is really good and I actually felt a bond between these two as in they were believable as mother and son. She is such an important part of his life and so nice that you see Davidson's point of view and want to just see her go the film and be happy. Bill Burr plays her love interest and he is awesome here too, he has great chemistry with Tomei and they just have a really nice relationship here and you want to see everything work out. His dynamic with Davidson is also a real highlight and does a great job of pushing both of their story arcs. Steve Buscemi has a smaller role here and he does a really good job in the role adding quality to his character. 

Story

The story of trying to see Davidson's character trying to get his life together is the driving force of this film. You do sympathise with him and you really want to see him get his life started and turned around and that is the real highlight here. However, this film's first act takes a bit to get going and tehre are some parts of the story that aren't concluded and feel open ended with a bit of an abrupt ending to boot. 

Script

The script is really good, there is just fun dialogue. Not a lot of really funny moments but this film is consistently chuckle worthy and that is enough to get you through easily. Plus there is a suprisingly large amount of heart and drama here that rises this above a pretty generic comedy that they make plenty of. 

Style

The film just looks really cool, it has a fun style mixed with some really tension filled moments that will keep you on the edge of your seat. However, this film is way too long, it could easily have had 20/30 mins chopped off and it would have been paced perfectly but it just ends up dragging at times.

Overall

Overall, this is a great suprise for me and is easily a great film to watch. If you are looking for a fun comedy with a bit of heart to it then The King Of Staten Island is worth a watch.

Rating - 8/10