King Jack
Jack, a 15-year-old delinquent stuck in a run-down small town, feels he has all the problems he can handle. When Jack's aunt falls ill and his runty younger cousin must stay with him for the weekend, and it's also when he learns to find happiness in bleak surroundings.
13 March 2012, New York
8 February 1990, Los Angeles, California, USA
July 12, 2016
Though Thompson clearly has a facility with young actors, as nearly every performance in the film is very good, it's not enough to save the film from mediocre clichés and poor dialogue baked into the script.
June 09, 2016
Thanks to a strongly rooted lead performance by Charlie Plummer as a 15-year-old small-town kid who's well on his way to a stint in juvenile detention, "King Jack" still strikes a resonant chord.
June 07, 2016
It's a tribute to Thompson's humane sensitivity to character detail that its concluding jolt of affirmation feels fully, inspirationally earned.
June 18, 2016
Might not have the freshest ingredients in the indie kitchen, but it still knows how to stir up something with a kick.
December 31, 2016
[Director Thompson] has a particular ally in Plummer, a bashed-up presence more compelling than a dozen stage-school brats, displaying a fortitude you warm to even as you're watching all cockiness being kicked from his form.
June 10, 2016
Lacking personality or insight, "King Jack" is a ho-hum tale of young aggression-been there, bruised that.
June 09, 2016
For everyone who ever had a close call as an adolescent and kept it from the grown-ups, "King Jack" will hit you where you live.
August 16, 2016
Dark coming-of-age movie has intense, sadistic bullying.
June 07, 2016
Writer-director Felix Thompson's first film is a sensitive and self-possessed debut that clocks in at 76 minutes and doesn't waste a single one of them.
June 09, 2016
First-time writer-director Felix Thompson demonstrates good instincts for two of King Jack's standard three acts.
