Message from the King

Jacob King arrives in Los Angeles from Cape Town looking for his younger sister, with whom he has lost contact. He has a return ticket home a few days later and little else to rely on. Within twenty-four hours he learns that she is dead under circumstances that raise more questions than they answer, and the remainder of his stay is spent working his way through the criminal underworld and the wealthy circles connected to it, trying to find out who was responsible.

Fabrice Du Welz directed the film, which came after Colt 45 (2014) in his filmography. Stephen Cornwell and Oliver Butcher wrote the screenplay, and the producers were David Lancaster, Stephen Cornwell and Simon Cornwell. Chadwick Boseman plays Jacob King, with Luke Evans, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Natalie Martinez and Chris Mulkey among the cast. The film is a Belgian, British, Canadian and American co-production made for about 10 million dollars.

Responses to the film were moderate. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.4 from around 19,000 votes, and on TMDB it stands at 6.2 from a much smaller pool of 509 votes. A film critics' rating of 5.8 from 10 reviews places it close to the audience scores, suggesting a broadly similar, if unenthusiastic, reception across both groups.