‘The King of Staten Island': Judd Apatow's Rambling and Meandering Pete Davidson Ode [Review]

I wondered why Judd Apatow chose Pete Davidson to star and lead his sixth feature-length film as director, and after seeing the grotesquely overlong “The King of Staten Island,” I still wonder and beg to ask the question, why?

Playing the son of a New York firefighter killed in a hotel fire, this highly fictionalized riff on Davidson’s life story showcases Apatow’s inability to edit or drive a story forward, ditto his struggle to deepen our understanding of the hero’s journey. It’s a messy, passionate, but ultimately failed attempt at capturing the “spirit” of Davidson’s shtick.

Davidson plays Scott, a 20-something, unemployed slacker, still living with his widowed Mom (Marisa Tomei) and sister (Maude Apatow), who is about to graduate and head off to college. Little sis is concerned about her bro; he’s just going through the motions in life, with barely any ambitions except for the misguided idea of opening a Tattoo parlor/restaurant: “It’s called “Ruby TatTOOSdays!” Scott thinks this is a great idea, but his friends think it’s idiotic.

The best scenes in the film occur in the first hour or so. Scott has a cannabis crew (Moises Arias, Lou Wilson, Ricky Velez), who joke around, throw insults at each other, and have that same aimlessness as the band of pothead slackers in Apatow’s “Knocked Up.” They even let Scott practice his tattoo skills on them, which leads to throwaway art and regrets all around. A whole movie could have been made about these idiots, but Apatow would rather concentrate on Scott’s daddy issues.

The crux of the drama starts when Scott decides to tattoo a random child who he and his pals run into one afternoon at the park. The kid’s raging fireman dad, Ray (Bill Burr), confronts his mother, but then quickly apologizes and — oh the balls on him! — has the chutzpah to then ask mom out on a date when he finds out that she’s a widow. That’s when the film slowly, but surely starts losing its dramatic grip by focusing on the effect Tomei and Burr’s relationship has on Scott.

Apatow doesn’t exactly find a groove in his film. In between the firefighter scenes, the tepid hijinks that happen at Scott’s new part-time restaurant job, the firefighting bonding moments, the on-again-off-again “girlfriend” (Bel Powley), and Mom’s pursuit of happiness, Apatow even decides to throw at us the botched robbery of a drug store by Scott and his friends. It all amounts to a film that, although ambitious, doesn’t even have as many laughs as this past year’s Davidson-starring pothead indie, “Big Time Adolescence.”

A better movie would have dealt more heavily with the millennial angst that clearly runs through Scott’s veins, as the mental health aspect is barely tackled here. We know he is depressed and has no direction in life, but primarily focusing on Scott’s jealousy toward’s mom’s new boyfriend was the wrong approach. And so, what we’re left to rely on the most are the hit-and-miss gags that Apatow throws at us, some of which stick to the wall and others that fall completely flat.

Davidson lacks the charm to fully carry this movie, but what “The King of Staten Island” exposes, yet again, is Apatow’s knack for losing the plot. The film meanders from one episode to the next, all in the while uncertain about what its intentions actually are. At 137 minutes, a nice trim in the runtime could have resulted in a more tightly constructed affair, but what we get instead is an aimless and overblown statement that lacks any sort of core. [C+]

MPAA Rating: R for language and drug use throughout, sexual content and some violence/bloody

Cast: Pete Davidson, Marisa Tomei, Bel Powley, Bill Burr, Steve Buscemi.Credits: Directed by Judd Apatow, script by Judd Apatow, Pete Davidson and Dave Sirus. A Universal release.Running time: 2:16