Review of The King of Staten Island (2020) by Crankyerma — 12 Jun 2020

Honestly, I'm not a fan of Apatow's work or really him personally. I find his public persona to be that of a pandering, hypocritical Centrist hack. That said, after seeing the trailer and knowing a bit about Pete Davidson's personal backstory, I was looking forward to something a little funnier and with possibly some genuine heart.

I was disappointed. I like Pete but the material here didn't really give him an opportunity to be very funny or show any emotional range. He was more or less a pet goldfish through the whole thing. It was like "Yeah, he's moving and doing stuff but is watching this entertaining to people who aren't stoned.

.. or even those who are?" I mean, there are little bits and pieces of a character arc for Pete but they feel like teases for some bigger evolution that never happens. There's nothing that is clearly defined here.

There is a lot of meandering in terms of story, wasted minutes that didn't need to be there, as with most of Apatow's films. And this film really doesn't have the truly poignant moments that allow an actor to show emotional range and show a clear pivot for the character.

Does Pete's character grow or change over the course of the film? Maybe a little but somebody should have told his face that because he seems to have the same look on it through the whole thing. There was an opportunity for a really good, funny, moving film here and it was missed by a fairly wide margin.

It's too bad because this could have been the career transforming vehicle for Pete that allows him to move on to film stardom and he seems like a nice guy.