I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

That very first scene gave me the chills! Something very few movies I've seen can accomplish - and I watch several movies a day as a Content Previewer for work. This movie is incredibly underrated, and I can see why critics have been bashing it. A lot of the people writing negative reviews go into this movie with expectations, specifically political expectations. People wanted to see an accurate depiction of the 1992 L.A riots, but were given something different. You have a view this film a cinematic piece as opposed to pro black lives matter sympathetic film or whatever political agenda people might assume this film is trying to push.The first scene in this title gave me a shiver down my spine. The combination of cinematography, directing and the acting had the perfect chemistry. You could tell that the director really wanted to capture the most finer details, encapsulating human emotion from traumatic experiences. The character development was a slow burn, but burned right. It was a very unpredictable film hence why you should go see it with no expectations. I've personally never heard of this director before, or the writer. So this is completely an unbiased perspective of this fine film.I definitely recommend seeing it.

...The saddest thing about Kings is the fact that the movie had so much potential. I am talking about the talents ...Daniel Craig...Halle Berry...and also timeline of the story chosen "Post Rodney King's trial" riots. Sadly the director was unable to utilize the potential and ended making a movie in which the plot is everywhere......As in really!, what is this movie about?, starts off like a story about a foster mom struggling to care for her foster children...Then before you know it, there is a teenaged girl rebelling something at school thrown in the mix....now you probably think, she is gona be connected to the foster home story...but she is just kept on the sidelines...Then there is Daniel Craig placed in as a neighbor...as in was he significant to the story, even if it's based on true story, the director had to keep some sort of a focus ...you don't just carelessly thrown anything in the mix....Then there is the riot...If this movie was given to good director with all the potentials that sorround it...might have been a great movie

"Kings" (R, 1:32) is a crime drama, with romantic undertones, written and directed by award-winning director Deniz Gamze Ergüven (2015's "Mustang"). Although the title is never really explained, the film is about a family of foster kids in South Central Los Angeles who struggle to deal with endemic racial discrimination - and to survive the L.A. riots following the 1992 Rodney King beating trial verdict.Oscar winner Halle Berry stars as Millie Dunbar, a foster mother who loves children and has a special place in her heart for troubled kids. She has a house full of them - boys and girls of different races and ages. She loves all of them as if they were her own and she works multiple jobs to take care of them. That last part means she's often away from home, and care for the younger ones often falls to her oldest, Jesse (Lamar Johnson). Jesse is intelligent and responsible, but he struggles against the instincts of his short-tempered best friend, William (Kaalan "KR" Walker), and a short-tempered neighbor, named Obie (Daniel Craig), who complains about Millie's parenting - and the noise coming from her house.The film uses a re-enactment of the fatal March 16, 1991 shooting of teenager Latasha Harlins by an L.A. Korean convenience store owner and news of the shooter's conviction, but subsequent sentence of probation, to set the stage for the events to come. As frustration in the black community builds, the film's plot remains focused on Millie's make-shift family and their relationships with their friends and other members of their neighborhood, including Obie. When it is announced that the police officers who beat Rodney King on the night of March 3, 1991 have been acquitted, rioting begins. Millie's kids are involved in the mayhem in various ways and she fights to find and protect them, with Obie helping her."Kings" is a personal window into the lives of average people during one of the most upsetting and violent moments in recent American history. Although fictionalized, the story is nevertheless affecting and the film is dedicated to one of the young men who lost his life during the riots. Some of the plot points feel contrived, but the film's effective at delivering greater understanding of and compassion for those affected by the L.A. riots - and the issues that led up to that episode - some of which clearly continue to plague society today. "B+"

An occasionally decent and thrilling film centered on Halle Berry as an altruistic foster mother. She gets tangled up in the violence and riots in Los Angeles, following the verdict in the Rodney King trial in 1991. "Kings" leaves an impression but despite its burning subject – racism and the abuse of power – it trivializes the seriousness of its own central theme. Also, within the context of the serious subject matter, the forced inclusions of distracting heterosexual romance make it a laughable affair, leaving you with a rather banal impression overall.