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King of California
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 41 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy
Written by: Michael Cahill
Directed by: Michael Cahill
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 14, 2007
DVD: January 29, 2008
Running Time: 93 minutes, Color
Origin: Mexico / USA
Language(s): English / Spanish
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for some strong language, mature thematic elements and brief drug references
Starring Michael Douglas, and Evan Rachel Wood
At the age of 16, Miranda has already had to live with her share of disappointments. Abandoned by her mother, she dropped out of school and has been supporting herself as an employee at McDonald's while her father Charlie resides in a mental institution. When Charlie is released and sent back to their home, Miranda finds the relatively peaceful existence she's 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. He then encourages Miranda to get a job there so that they can plan a way to excavate after hours. (First Look Pictures)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site View The Trailer
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
TV Guide Ken Fox
Wood is excellent, but this is a career highlight for Douglas. His depiction of the manic Charlie stays surprisingly grounded and prevents the story from being a naive celebration of mental illness as a kind of freedom that it so easily could have become.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
It's as if the star (Douglas) finally gets to integrate all his onscreen personas, all at once.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
With Douglas, the film's shambling charms slowly catch hold, thanks mainly to his personal magnetism.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
In updating Shakespeare’s "The Tempest," writer-director Mike Cahill focuses on the magic worth finding between a father and daughter. That’s why the film sticks with you. It’s a gift.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Cahill deserves major credit for keeping the story from becoming mawkish or twee. He was also wise enough to realize it's Douglas' show, and as soon as he steps into the frame, you'll know it, too.
Read Full Review >Premiere Glenn Kenny
The result is enjoyable and frequently affecting. The one weak note is Douglas' performance — he does more than phone it in, but his essential Douglas-ness makes the character less believable than he might have been.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
When you stand back a step from the movie, you admire Douglas and Wood for starting with potentially unplayable characters, and playing them so well we actually care about a quest that, in a way, seems more designed for Abbott and Costello.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
Mike Cahill's King of California reminds me of those '70s-era pictures beloved of the counterculture about appealing rebels who go down in flames of moral victory.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
The treasure of the film is the unearthing of the family bond, magically played by Douglas and Wood.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
After a 40-year career playing jut-jawed a__holes, Michael Douglas must relish the occasional oddball role: he gave a winning performance as the pot-addled professor in "Wonder Boys," and he seems to be having a ball in this funny debut feature by Mike Cahill.
Read Full Review >Variety John Anderson
Douglas is a manic joy, and Wood manages to hang on for the ride.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
The strange, funny and sad story of a bipolar jazz musician and his long-suffering teenage daughter, reunited after his two-year stay in a mental institution.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
A flaky, tedious, intermittently likable fable about being crazy in a crazy world.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The movie develops in two pieces - one dealing with the quest for the hidden riches and once concentrating on the relationship between father and daughter. The latter works; the former doesn't.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Zack Haddad
The film has a great visual style and manages to show Los Angeles in a fresh way that the average Hollywood eye isn’t used to, while, on the acting front, Evan Rachel Wood surpasses Michael Douglas in scenes, solidifying herself as an actor to look out for.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
King of California may look and feel realistic, but it is really a Don Quixote-like fable about nonconformity and pursuing your impossible dream to the very end.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
If you're looking for a screwball comedy about bipolar disorder -- and who among us is not? -- then this picture fits the bill fine. However, if you're picky enough to want a good screwball comedy about bipolar disorder, well, I'm afraid the wait continues.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
Hard to tell what’s more annoying in this empty character study of eccentrics and the suckers who love them: the braying, blurting soundtrack or Douglas himself, who can’t find his way into a man tortured by dull demons.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
There's so little authenticity between them, it destroys the story's most crucial element: the love between father and daughter. And finding the gold becomes our only reason to watch.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.7 (out of 10) based on 41 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Philip K. gave it a9:
Great vehicle for Michael Douglas. While the plausibility of the story is admittedly far-fetched, the film did not take itself too seriously, which enabled it to make its points about the socitey's definition of sanity and the suffocating encroachment of suburban development and modern merchandising of food (McDonalds) and goods (Costco) in a poignant way. Thus, it's entirely understandable that a certifiably crazy person (by modern society's standards) seeks treasure from California's historic past underneath the concrete floor of a Costco ('They've got everything...'), and finds it.
Justin H. gave it a6:
Good for what it is, and very watchable, but lacking in overall depth of characters and story line. After the first thirty minutes the story doesn't go much further that what is already established.
Dean P gave it a10:
I love treasure hunt movies and this was no exception. It kept my attention the entire time.
Bob N. gave it a10:
I'm giving it a ten just to piss off the dopes who gave it a zero or a 3. It's a good movie,and it demands some emotional stretching on the viewers part. Do the work, for chrissake and you'll be entertained.
Cat gave it a9:
As someone with a mother who has a mental illness and father who has no substance, this movie hit home. Wood portrayed how it really is to have to take care of one's self. If people do not understand what life is like living with someone like that, I guess it would not ring true. This is an elegantly done movie.
Jay K gave it a6:
Narration is TERRIBLE, very much like that in "Into the Wild"; somehow they made Wood seem like she was just some crappy 17-year-old actress. Michael Douglass is okay, but his character has zero dynamic range. "Manic daddy!" The script and direction are cheesmo. Camera work is lame. Pretty mediocre. Probably made my life a tiny bit worse. A lot of people will probably like it. :)
Chad S. gave it a7:
A dishwashing machine and the faraway eyes of a young girl, Miranda(Evan Rachel Wood), a sixteen-year-old high school dropout, who doesn't wish for anything more than a domestic appliance; because Charlie(Michael Douglas), her destitute father, leaves his food-encrusted dishes for his daughter to wash when she returns home after performing double-shifts at a McDonalds, is the indelible image in "King of California", an agreeable film about family blood. It's thick. Charlie suffers from a mental illness, but that doesn't mean he gets a free pass from the considerable fallout that his two-year absence from Miranda's life created. Miranda doesn't have the trappings of a normal teenaged girl. She looks at that dishwashing machine like how girls look at their boyfriends. "King of California" scores points in the realism department by showing how Charlie's eccentricities aren't cute, but have ramifications for his daughter's welfare. Blood is thick, however, and it's only fitting that there is water under Costco's floor.
