KING RICHARD

Will Smith serves us another outstanding performance as Richard Williams, the father and coach to tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. Armed with unshakable confidence in his girls, Richard gambles and in the process, rewrites the books of how young tennis protege's are thought of. Taking place on the hard streets of Compton during the 1980's & 1990's, the film shows the family's struggles to rise out of poverty, with Richard seemingly keeping an eye on his girls every waking minute with the exception of when he works nights and the girls are asleep. An overbearing, but loving, positive reinforcing father, Richard wants greatness for his girls and knows they're capable of it. In addition, he tries to keep the girls as busy as possible between school and tennis so they can't get into mischief on the streets. In fact, it doesn't seem the girls have time for friends either as the film stays strictly with the family. Once the film establishes our characters, the story then turns more into the story of Richard and Venus as opposed to Serena, who's relegated to the background due to her younger age. Unable to afford tennis lessons, Richard makes tapes and begins searching for a tennis coach who'll do it for free and finds such a man in Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn). Cohen, having coached the likes of John McEnroe and Pete Sampras, further develops Venus as she begins entering and dominating tournaments against her peers. She seems to be on the right path until Richard, shockingly cuts ties with Cohen for no apparent reason and switches to another coach, Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal). The family moves from California to Florida where Macci's tennis academy is located but the relationship between Richard and Macci quickly takes a turn upon their arrival, as Richard states he's no longer going to allow Venus to play in junior level tournaments and only wants her to train and have fun being a kid. I will tip my cap to Richard as he bet on his girls big and won big in the process, going against every logical and historically road it takes to become a professional tennis player. Smith is outstanding as the soft spoken Richard Williams and could garner an Academy award nomination but I wasn't 100% convinced he did enough to win it once the credits rolled. Also Saniyya Sidney who played Venus and Demi Singleton who played Serena need to be recognized as they too were very enjoyable as the teenage stars. 6.5/10