By Dan Skip Allen

One of the things about movies is that you never know what you’re going to get some time. A title or trailer are meant to give you an idea about what you’re going to be watching, but in the case of “The Rivals of Amziah King,” they don’t give much away. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. In the case of this movie, it was a good thing because I didn’t exactly know what I was going to watch. Only that it starred Matthew McConaughey and premiered at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival and was bought by Black Bear out of the festival from good word of mouth from critics. That’s enough endorsement for me.

Amziah King (Matthew McConaughey) is an apiarist, bee keeper, from rural Oklahoma. He owns his own honey company. He does pretty well for himself and brought others into his business to help them out. He is also part of a pretty good blue grass band, where he plays a mean mandelin in his free time. The industry he’s in is a pretty cutthroat business. Others want what he has. They get the law involved and try to take over his company in an underhanded way, but McConaughey’s character has more on his plate than he realized as when he goes to a diner one day he sees his foster daughter, Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass) who he has been estranged from him for years. This starts him down a new path in his life where he wants to redeem himself. She is the best thing that has happened to him in years.

This movie has an extensive cast. There are a lot of good character actors in this cast. Tony Ravolori plays one of the helpers of McConaughey’s character, Dob McCoy (Kurt Russell), who is a competitor of McConaughey’s character. The Oat (Cole Sprouse), Remmick (Jake Horiwitz), Rippy (Rob Morgan), Owen Teague, and Scott Shepard are all either workers for or band members of McConaughey’s character. This cast is pretty good. They all compliment McConaughey’s character quite nicely. They all seemed to have pretty good chemistry with each other and the main character. This was what the true definition of ensemble cast is. A group that works well together and adds their own favor to the story and film.

The film is written/directed by Andrew Patterson. He combined different things to create something original, even though some of what he created is a bit confusing. He made decisions about the editing and filmmaking style that was a bit strange to me. Slow-mo scenes at the beginning and other narrative choices didn’t work for me. I understand trying to do a new-western and create a singular vision filmgoers haven’t seen before, but it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. I heard a lot of good things out of SXSW last year, but I’m going to chalk that up as recency bias. This movie isn’t as good as people have said it was in my humble opinion. 

The cinematography was strange to me by Miguel I. Litten Menz. Combined with the editing, the film was going for something different than I’ve seen before, but it’s not exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately. I like the period look the movie was going for, but the editing was disjointed as far as I’m concerned. The first half was very bad, not as bad as the ending, though. The second half was better, but not that much better. I also had issues with the sound. I couldn’t hear a lot of the dialogue and music. That could have been the screener I was watching, though. I’m a big proponent of the technical aspects of films. I need them to look, sound, and feel well put together. This film wasn’t any of those as far as I’m concerned. 

This movie uses folk/blue grass music as a side note.  I would have liked to see more of the music and less of the crazy editing and odd filmmaking choices. I trust Matthew McConaughey’s choices in films. I understand why he would have chosen this role. He wanted to do something different than the rom-coms he was known for in the 2000s. The “McConasance” proved that. He did one terrific role after another in the 2010s. This role is in the vein of those. He definitely shines in his role and the time he’s on screen, but it’s the other stuff I mentioned that took away from his performance. It’s definitely not his fault.

There was one thing about the film besides what I already mentioned, which was the bees. The bees and their colony represent something in the context of the story. The drones, workers, and the queen all have a symbolism in the context of the story. When added to the rest of the movie, the bees, honey, and the colony mean a lot. Except the film doesn’t explore them enough for my liking. Similarly to the blue grass music. The movie touches on them to peak the viewers curiosity but doesn’t go the extra length to give the audience what it needs. I would have wished for more than the script and director touched on with the bees.

“The Rivals of Amziah King” was a movie I was looking forward to quite a bit. Especially after the word of mouth out of the SXSW Film Festival in 2025. I have eagerly anticipated its release. I even sought out a screener to watch because of my excitement of wanting to see it so badly. Sometimes, you have tempered your expectations because films can let you down. Such as this one. It’s not McConaughey’s fault, though. He does a good job in his role as the title character. Even the antagonist is very underwhelming.The supporting cast is good, especially LookingGlass. She is a revelation in this movie, but like McConaughey, the film lets her down in a big way. The director dropped the ball regarding the editing and the cinematography. Also, there wasn’t enough blue grass music for my liking. There was a lot about this movie I didn’t like, and that outwayed my likes in the film. It happens that way sometimes. Not everything is great.

🌟 🌟 stars