"Have you ever seen this place in the rain? It's like rotting cardboard. Same smell. But then, the rain clears and the sun shines, and the air smells like jasmine and orange. And you think that maybe...maybe it's not so bad. Maybe you're gonna stay and...give it another go."
— Kelly
Message from the King is a 2016 revenge-action-drama film directed by Fabrice Du Welz and written by Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell starring Chadwick Boseman, Luke Evans, Teresa Palmer and Alfred Molina. The film debuted at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2016 and was released on Netflix on August 4, 2018.
After receiving a message asking for his help from his sister Bianca, Jacob King (Boseman) leaves his home city of Cape Town to travel to Los Angeles where she lives. Upon finding out that Bianca has died, King becomes determined to avenge her and goes to war against the corrupt individuals responsible for his sister's downfall.
Contains examples of the following tropes:
- Asshole Victim: The entire gang around Wentsworth and Preston are this. Wentsworth is a sleazy asshole who hired the gang members that tortured and killed Bianca, Preston repeatedly raped Armand and when realizing Bianca had video evidence, came crying to Wentsworth to fix it. There are absolutely no tears spilled when King shoots Preston dead and sets up an explosive trap that blows up Wentsworth and the rest of the gang.
- Big Brother Instinct: King immediately comes to Bianca's aid after receiving her message and upon finding out that she was brutally murdered becomes hell-bent on finding and punishing her killers.
- Bittersweet Ending: King has managed to avenge his sister, having killed nearly all the men who ruined her life and took it afterwards. Additionally, the money he took from Preston's mansion allows him to give Kelly and her daughter the means to travel back to New Mexico and start a new life far away from the cesspool that is Los Angeles. However, Bianca and her husband are still dead and King was unable to help their son Armand who is now God knows where and will probably end up becoming a Street Urchin. What's more, Leary is still about and with everyone of his criminal associates dead by King's hand will remain unpunished and unhindered in his political career. That being said, King is still in possession of the SD card showing Leary partaking in an orgy, so Leary might not be completely out of the woods yet.
- Blatant Lies: When King first goes looking for Bianca and asks Zico for her whereabouts, Zico and the men with him tell him they have no idea where she is. It's very obvious they're lying their asses off.
- Chekhov's Gun: Bianca's old belongings that she gave to her neighbor for safe-keeping shortly before her death. Hidden among them in a pack of cigarettes is an encrypted SD card, containing video evidence of Preston being a pedophile.
- Corrupt Cop: The two hitmen Leary hires through Wentworth to take out King are two LAPD officers.
- Corrupt Politician: Frank Leary, who is running for office and was one of Bianca's clients. He doesn't want that information to get out, so he tasks Wentworth with getting rid of the problem her brother poses.
- Cowboy Cop: King is a police detective from Cape Town, so he's well out of his jurisdiction in L.A. but given that his sister was brutally murdered he doesn't much care and is willing to break more than a few rules (and jaws) to bring her murderers to justice.
- Heroic Bloodshed: King kills and mutilates quite a few people over the course of the movie, but given that nearly all of them are hardened criminals and gang members who had some hand in his sister's death in one way or another the audience is unlikely to fault him for this brutality.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Kelly, who is a kind woman through and through and a loving mother to her daughter.
- Karma Houdini: As the only one not directly involved in the fight against King, Leary remains unpunished at the end of the film and is free to play the squeaky-clean politician.
- Replacement Goldfish: It's implied that Kelly reminds King of his own sister, both being single mothers forced into prostitution. Which might be why he leaves Preston's money to her at the end of the film, so unlike his sister she'll never be forced to sell her body to slimebags like Wentworth and his associates ever again.
- The Reveal: The last scene of the movie reveals that King is actually a detective in Cape Town's police force, explaining his extraordinary skill-set demonstrated over the course of the plot, as well as his tenacity in finding Bianca.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: King didn't initially come to L.A. to start one, but he sure as hell does once he finds out what was done to Bianca.
- Ship Tease: King and Kelly get quite a few romantic-looking scenes together over the course of the movie, down to Kelly nursing him back to health after he survives Wentworth's attempt on his life via hitmen heavily injured. They never actually get together as a couple, but you could argue the spark is definitely there.
- Single Mom Stripper: Kelly, who has a daughter who's father has long been out of the picture.
- Stuffed into the Fridge: Bianca is brutally tortured and murdered so King can have a motivation for his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Title Drop: After mutilating his face, King tells Zico to relay to his boss, Duke, that this attack was "a message from the King".
