King Jack

For the man known as King Jack in early colonial Adelaide, see Rymill Park § Dual naming (2003).

King Jack is a 2015 American coming-of-age adventure drama film written and directed by Felix Thompson in his directorial debut. The film stars Charlie Plummer, Cory Nichols, Christian Madsen, Daniel Flaherty, Erin Davie and Chloe Levine, and follows a 15-year-old boy who befriends his introverted cousin while facing off against a sadistic school bully.

King Jack
Directed by	Felix Thompson
Written by	Felix Thompson
Produced by	Dominic Buchanan Gabrielle Nadig
Starring	Charlie Plummer Cory Nichols Christian Madsen Daniel Flaherty Erin Davie Chloe Levine
Cinematography	Brandon Roots
Edited by	Paul Penczner
Music by	Bryan Senti
Production company	Whitewater Films
Distributed by	Well Go USA Entertainment
Release dates	April 17, 2015 (2015-04-17) (Tribeca) February 26, 2016 (2016-02-26) (United Kingdom)
Running time	80 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English

Plot

Jack, a scrappy 15-year-old boy, bonds with his introverted cousin while facing off against a bully.

Cast

• Charlie Plummer as Jack^[2]
• Cory Nichols as Ben
• Christian Madsen as Tom
• Daniel Flaherty as Shane
• Erin Davie as Karen
• Chloe Levine as Holly
• Yainis Ynoa as Harriet
• Melvin Mogoli as Beavan
• Keith Leonard as Officer Pete
• Francis Piscopo as Eric

Release

The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 17, 2015.^[3][4]

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, which categorizes reviews only as positive or negative, 94% of 35 reviews are positive. The website's critical consensus reads, "Hard-hitting and honest yet sensitive, King Jack is an uncommonly affecting coming-of-age drama and a powerful calling card for debuting writer-director Felix Thompson."^[5] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 72 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[6]

In the Los Angeles Times, Michael Rechtsaffen said that "thanks to a strongly rooted lead performance by Charlie Plummer as a 15-year-old small-town kid who's well on his way to a stint in juvenile detention, "King Jack" still strikes a resonant chord."^[7] On IndieWire, David Ehrlich said that "writer-director Felix Thompson's first film is a sensitive and self-possessed debut that clocks in at 76 minutes and doesn't waste a single one of them"^[8]