There is a moment in The Rivals of Amziah King when the movie stops being the film you thought you were watching. At first, Andrew Patterson’s neo-Western feels almost gentle. You have Matthew McConaughey wandering through rural Oklahoma, bluegrass drifting through the soundtrack, bees humming around wooden hives, and a community held together by one…
There are movies that change genres gradually, giving you plenty of warning. Then there is The Rivals of Amziah King, which basically looks you in the eye, lets a bluegrass tune play, hands you a jar of honey, and then kicks the door open to a crime thriller. Honestly? I loved the nerve of it….
There are movies that advertise exactly what they are from the first trailer. Then there are movies like The Rivals of Amziah King, which seem to change shape every time you think you have figured them out. Andrew Patterson’s second feature after The Vast of Night takes a seemingly modest subject — beekeeping in rural…
There are movies that fit neatly into a genre, and then there are movies like The Rivals of Amziah King, which seem determined to make the viewer guess what they are watching every twenty minutes. Andrew Patterson’s follow-up to The Vast of Night starts with the deceptively cozy atmosphere of a rural Oklahoma community. There…
Matthew McConaughey the beekeeper. Kurt Russell as a ruthless agricultural kingpin. Live bees. Mandolins. Rural Oklahoma. A revenge story that suddenly decides it wants to become something much stranger. That is basically the elevator pitch for The Rivals of Amziah King, and honestly, I’m glad nobody tried to make it sound more normal. After spending…
There are some movies that feel like they were made for a crowded theater, and The Rivals of Amziah King looks like one of them. Andrew Patterson, the director behind The Vast of Night, is back with a very different kind of slow-burn thriller: rural Oklahoma, a dangerous honey empire, bluegrass, family history, and a…