The White King (2017)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The film needs a prologue or introduction to set the scene and introduce the 1984-like world it is set in. We are lost from beginning to end about the why-for of everything we see happening. This isn't a mystery novel or a who-done-it after all, why can't the explication be clearer? Who the hell is Young Hank. What is the purpose of the character Pickaxe anyway? Does a viewer really have to read the novel to gain any insights? If so the screenwriter and director have utterly failed. Still the acting is good throughout and the principal and supporting characters are affecting.

The books author György Dragomán grew up in the worst totalitarian empire in world history, the communist block countries of Romania and Hungary.The view from eyes of an 11-year-old near brainwashed by groupthink, where he is pressured to wish away his own liberty in order to conform is a insightful point of view given today's group think and "children's crusades" being foisted in todays' young people, by what pretends to be grassroots but which is really cynically created by the forces of oppression.The author is a fan of Ray Bradbury whose Fahrenheit 451, about the dangers of dividing society into groups that are perpetually outraged by anything that might be offensive to any one group, and the shutting down of free speech and burning of offending books is something we see in anti-free speech movement in the US.

Potential. But I think it failed to convert from the book into a film. The backdrop with violent kids just rampaging, and no one paying attention to that, to the ending that offered nothing. I have no idea what the film was wanting to achieve. I think they wanted to make this a triple series but maybe realised it was just weak material and gave up. either that or the editor is owed his or her $500 fee and withheld the last 20 minutes of the film. Watch it or not it is one of those that won't make a difference. Sad really, had a lot of potential in there. I think you could have gone to 20 random people in the street and they could have made that 50% better

I love dystopian films and therefore I really enjoy this film, yes as some critics mentioned there are a few set pieces / stories that aren't fully explained (The robot or cave scene for example) but the viewer needs to take this as a part of the overall world the film is set in. Why is the state depraving his citizen of wealth or technology? what happen to people that rebel, how to survive? what is freedom? all these questions are viewed from the young main protagonist that is delivering a really good performance. A film that makes you think is always a good thing, a film that doesn't have an happy ending is also always better...