King Ivory, John Swab’s action thriller, is an expose about the fentanyl epidemic that suffers from a lack of character development.
Writer-Director: John Swab
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Run Time: 130′
Venice World Premiere: September 2, 2024
U.S. Release Date: TBA
U.K. Release Date: TBA
John Swab’s action thriller King Ivory is a series of snapshot stories and interconnected characters centred around fentanyl trafficking in the United States. The film covers all rungs of the production ladder, from smuggler to dealer to consumer, and some intertitles at the beginning warn of the rising epidemic and its dangers. But the movie itself somewhat pulls its punches, keeping its characterisation too vague and its plot a little too disjointed to ever really feel more than ‘okay’.
Layne West (James Badge Dale) is a police officer who has seen first hand the effects of drug and distribution throughout Oklahoma. Ramón Garza (Michael Mando) traffics product and people through the US/Mexico border, amassing quite the empire, reputation and criminal record along the way. George ‘Smiley’ Greene (Ben Foster), fresh from prison, is tasked with tying up loose ends and ensuring that business is booming with help from his mum Ginger (Melissa Leo) and Irish mobster Mickey (Ritchie Coster). And then there’s Jasper (Jack West), Layne’s son, whose girlfriend’s suggestion that they try a new way of getting high has dire consequences. Everyone has a direct connection to fentanyl and, by extension, to each other.
King Ivory is based on a wealth of research, gathered from law enforcement, inmates, migrants and addicts alike, and its primary focus is on exposing the devastating impact of a drug more potent than heroin. Its dramatic increase in popularity within the United States has had a profoundly negative effect on communities, and Swab’s aim with the film is to showcase a series of stories that collate to a snapshot look at the scope of the epidemic.
While a very smart way of approaching the subject on as broad a scale as possible, as a viewing experience it falls a little bit short. The film suffers from pacing issues, feeling a little too slow at times and like it sacrifices character development by trying to give everyone an equal slice of screen time. The performances are, for the most part, engaging and decent, but it’s difficult to approach every character with equal enthusiasm when the film feels much more concerned with action and plot progression than characterisation. And yet, despite that concern, its plot feels disjointed. The series of stories don’t feel as cohesive as they could, and there’s a few moments that lack the momentum needed for the scene’s content to really work.
It does deliver on its action really well, building to an inevitable but well-choreographed bullet-ridden climax. However, it doesn’t do much outside of that to offer anything particularly new or fresh feeling. While there’s a really interesting premise here, and an obviously very important message – and warning – to take from it, King Ivory feels weighed down with its own intensity and commitment to covering as much scale as possible. Which is a real shame.
King Ivory had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2024. Read our review of Pooja Sir!
