Tanya’s Score: Good-and-a-half*
Rated: R (I think a 14A rating would have been more appropriate)
Starring: the former, almost “Mr. Grande“; George Costanza’s “celebrity crush“; Steve Buscemi
Plot: A floundering wannabe tattoo artist (Pete Davidson) must come to terms with his father’s death and figure out what he wants from life.
Tanya’s Verdict: Judd Apatow has a way with his movies that I quite enjoy – they are long and meandering, have funny bits here and there and are filled with believable and damaged characters.
My biggest complaint is that this one runs long at over two hours – it could easily lose a half-hour making it a tighter and more even-keeled film. And due to the length and meandering plot, there are a few times when momentum slows down making the movie a tad unbalanced in my opinion.
Pete Davidson as the weed-addled, going-nowhere loser was nothing short of impressive to me. My only knowledge of him comes from his brief appearances on SNL and the fact that he was formerly engaged to Ariana Grande. His role in this movie changes all that for me and proves he’s not just another not-so-pretty face in Hollywood.
The fact that his character and this story are loosely based on Davidson’s reality (his real-life father was a firefighter killed on September 11th) adds another layer of heartache to this often sad, sometimes funny, completely poignant movie.
If you don’t go in expecting a raucous and raunchy laugh-out-loud comedy – then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with The King of Staten Island.
*Four score descriptions: Sh**; Okay; Good; Great