Life of a King

Well acted but not well scripted story with strong performances by Cuba Gooding Jr and Malcolm Mays.

For a movie that speaks of focusing on the king, this movie didn't follow its own advice. It was all over trying to follow different subplots. But its heart was in the right place, and it landed on some wonderful lessons.

"This is a king. This is your life. One mistake and it can be taken away." Eugene Brown (Gooding Jr.) is an ex-felon who is struggling to find a job and relate to his kids. After finding a job as a high school janitor he is asked to watch the detention kids one day until they can find a replacement. When he brings up the topic of chess he begins to change the lives of the "troubled kids" forever. I love movies based on true stories, but I was worried about seeing this going in. One one hand a true story with Cuba Gooding Jr, that is good. On the other hand though I thought how many times can they remake Lean On Me? After movies like that one and Dangerous Minds, Freedom Writers, Fame, etc... I wondered how different can this one be. While I have to admit it wasn't 100% different it was very very good and much much better then I was expecting. The best part about this movie is that it stayed just a step or two away from being way to cheesy to be enjoyed but it did a good job of changing things just enough to keep it feeling real while keeping the emotion that it needed. Different enough from the previous "helping inner city kids" movies to make it interesting and worth seeing. Overall, very good and never took the over-the-top cheesy way out that so many of these types of movies do. That is a good thing and because of that I highly recommend the movie. I give this an A-.

Cuba Gooding is an ex-con looking to make amends to his kids for not being the father he should have been. He finds himself teaching troubled inner city kids chess in a bid to put something back to society whilst trying to regain the trust of his own alienated kids.

Life of a King is a small movie and has familiar themes that we have seen in many other inner city dramas. What sets this one apart and makes it a must watch is the standard of the acting and a script that doesn't waste a scene. Cuba Gooding Jr is hugely charismatic and excels in this. It's something of a surprise that he isn't a bigger star though maybe he just wants it that way. Whats more of a surprise though is the quality of the mainly unknown young actors in this who all do a fantastic job especially Malcolm M Mays, showing both realism and passion.

This is a mainly gritty tale but also wonderfully inspiring with an ending that pays off. It is almost impossible not to like Life of a King which is one of the best feel good movies I've seen. This film deserves a much higher profile.

Eugene Brown (Cuba Gooding Jr.) just got out of prison. His daughter Katrina doesn't want to deal with him and he's desperate to prove his worth to her. He gets a job as a janitor at an inner city D.C. school. The kids chase out the teacher monitoring detention and Sheila King (LisaGay Hamilton) puts Eugene in charge for a minute. He does such a great job that she puts him in charge permanently. He starts teaching them to play chess. The effort is opposed by drug lord Perry.

It's yet another 'teach inner city kids something different'. It takes a few different turns than the usual genre movie. The hurdles are a little different. Cuba is relatively good. The young kids are all great. Jake Goldberger's directing is not terribly inventive. It's more of a solid TV movie that is slightly better than the average movie in the genre.