Review of King of California (2007) by Lee B — 18 Feb 2011

Miranda: You don't take anything seriously do you? You think the world is just here for your amusement!

Charlie: But look at the world...

Miranda: I do. But unlike you I have to live in it!

Charlie: So then, it dawned on me one night, while the other patients were watching JAG.

Miranda: They like that in there?

Charlie: They love it.

Charlie: Breaking and entering makes everything taste... different. Makes it taste, um, livelier.

This movie is sort of like a pill you take it but you don't feel the effects immediately you have to wait to feel it and just like that is this movie at first it feels out of place but it grows on you until you want to see what happens at the edge of your seat.

The premise of King of California might not sound all that amazing. It essentially is a modern, quirky treasure hunt with Michael Douglas. Some critics say that it doesn't know what it wants to be, which doesn't apply at all here. It's a fairly solid drama with some light comedy mixed in at times. Since Douglas plays someone who isn't entirely mentally stable, it might be confused for the movie trying to be more of a comedy. All of that is beside the point as it all works as you're watching it and you'll be far too entertained to think about what it may or may not be trying to be.

Douglas clearly demonstrates that he still has some great acting left in his career as he adds a very commendable performance from King of California to his list. Evan Rachel Wood is also great as his daughter. The two leads really work well together and give the movie a rather unique feel as the film progresses. The movie as a whole also looks visually impressive. As for the screenplay, it gets the job done, without doing having anything too stupid happen, even though there were some times when they could have easily ruined it.

King of California can easily be described as a comedy/adventure movie and in many ways it actually is both of these. However there is a greater story being told which is how Charlie, a failure in almost every way, tries to reach out to the daughter who he doesn't really know anymore. In return Miranda has to learn that her father, for better or worse, is who he is and she must accept his quirks if she is to understand him.

The quest for missing Spanish Gold, which is found underneath a Costco of all places, serves as the means to bring the two closer together. 17th century California, filled with Native Americans and wide open spaces, shows little resemblance to 21st century California which is now filled with endless suburbs, highways, and other such modern day creations. Charlie drags Miranda from location to location and slowly ends up convincing her, to some degree, that perhaps there actually is gold to be found somewhere. Miranda discovers that she does want to believe in her father but perhaps more of a need for him to be right at least once in his life. She is a hesitant follower but eventually sees the search as a way to understand a man she doesn't really know.

The gold is found but that's not the real conclusion for either Charlie or Miranda. Charlie explains that the whole search was made for Miranda's sake. In that sense Charlie succeeds in showing love to the daughter that he had in effect abandoned long ago as well as giving her a life that she otherwise never would have had. Miranda in return finally realizes that she does love her father and that he was right about at least one thing in his life. (Well, two if you include the naked swimming Chinese men he speaks of earlier in the movie.).

If there is a complaint to be made of King of California it's that it seems to move much too fast. There is a lot left out in terms of what the relationship was between Miranda and her mother and how his wife's leaving could have affected Charlie's mental state. There are hints of Charlie's past adventures but we never really hear of them and how they also could have affected him. This doesn't ruin the movie but a better explanation could have given more to the plot and the characters.

A moving story about how love finds even the strangest way to reveal itself, King of California is a good movie that shows how two very distant people can still be drawn together.

At the age of sixteen, Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) has already had to live with her share of disappointments. Abandoned by her mother, shes dropped out of school and has been supporting herself as an employee at McDonalds while her father Charlie (Michael Douglas) resides in a mental institution.

When Charlie is released and sent back to their home, Miranda finds the relatively peaceful existence shes built for herself completely disrupted. Charlie has become obsessed with the notion that the long-lost treasure of Spanish explorer Father Juan Florismarte Garces is buried somewhere near their suburban California housing unit. Armed with a metal detector and a stack of treasure-hunting books, Charlie soon finds reason to believe that the gold resides underneath the local Costco, and encourages Miranda to get a job there so that they can plan a way to excavate after hours.

Initially skeptical, Miranda soon finds herself joining in Charlies questionable antics in an effort to give him one last shot at accomplishing his dreams in this darkly funny, exciting and surprisingly hopeful take on the modern family and the American dream.

A fresh-out-of-the-mental institution father and his emancipated teenage daughter venture together on a quest for an ancient Spanish treasure buried beneath their local Costco in this take on the modern family and the American dream.

A young girl's teenage years are complicated by an eccentric and manic-depressive father who becomes obsessed with his belief that there's buried treasure in the San Fernando Valley.

An unstable dad who after getting out of a mental institution tries to convince his daughter that there's Spanish gold buried somewhere under suburbia.