The Rivals of Amziah King Rocks...

August 2026

 

If any film deserves word of mouth...

 

It’s The Rivals of Amziah King...

 

A truly wonderful little movie...

About beekeepers... and crime...

 

But this film is about more than the Zen of beekeeping...

Embedded in a clever criminal caper story...

 

It has beautifully filmed scenes of bees...

Eccentric characters...

 

But it is the music that takes this movie to another level...

 

With its foot stoppin’ joyful soundtrack...

And scenes with countryfolk sitting around in a living room ...

Making music...

That lifts the soul...

 

Now some art forms have a sensuous untranslatable immediacy...

To borrow a phrase from Susan Sontag...

And The Rivals of Amziah King is that kind of movie...

 

Because in the moment...

As you are sitting in the theater...

You just know you are watching something special...

 

In a way that this year’s big blockbusters...

The Odyssey, Project Hail Mary, and The Devil Wears Prada...

Never came close to achieving...

 

Now this movie is set in rural Oklahoma..

And its director, Andrew Patterson is a native Oklahoman...

So it has an authentic feel...

 

It does have all the country music tropes about small town life...

 

So trains and trucks play important roles in the plot...

 

Along with thieving...

 

And if you have ever lived out in the country...

You know how much theft can be a problem...

Because there is often no one around to see it....

Or if they do...stop it....

 

But this movie is also a love letter to small towns...

 

And that may have been part of its appeal to me...

 

Because much of the action takes places at pot luck suppers...

In towns where everyone knows everybody...

 

So it brought back memories of church bazaars, cake walks...

Farmers telling your daddy where.. and with whom...

You were parked last Saturday night...

Guys with fiddles and guitars jamming in garages...

And the Pott County Pork and Bean Band playing in rented gyms on summer evenings...

 

In these kind of places... people look out for each other...

So to quote Jason Aldean...this is where people “take care of our own”

 

And The Rivals of Amziah King is definitely a movie about people taking care of their own...

 

Matthew McConaughey as the charismatic Amziah King collects lost souls...

And most of the people around him... look out for each other...

 

But small towns are no different in that there are those take advantage of others...

 

And in this film it is Kurt Russell...

Who is particularly ruthless...

Against his rivals...

 

He uses local corruption...

And some very clever tactics to take the small farmer... and beekeeper... out...

As he consolidates his business empire...

 

But to his credit Patterson...
Does not make Russell’s Dob McCoy a caricature...

He is someone who is comfortably part of the community...

And has a caring side...

 

Because he does love that dog...

 

And then there is Kateri....

The native girl Amziah takes in...

Who turns out to be Dob’s inscrutable adversary...

 

And who, along with her accomplice Remnick...

Executes a very clever heist...

 

But at the end she issues a prophecy...

Which is basically...

Don’t ever think of f...king with me....

 

And by that time you have good reason to believe her...

 

So for this reason...

 

Despite all its small town feel good feeling...

The Rivals of Amziah King...

Is a bit unsettling in the end...

 

Because as ruthless and as underhanded as Dob is...

He is never violent....

 

But the same cannot be said about “the good guys” in this film...

 

So one of the things that makes this such an interesting movie...

Is that you are left feeling slightly guilty...

For wanting “the good guys” to win...

 

Because one of them does something particularly awful...

Which was much worse than anything Dob did...

 

And was not only not necessary....

But grisly and gratuitous...

 

So you worry a bit about what the winners are going to do ....

To stay in power...

 

So this is just one of the many reasons why this gem of a movie is on another level...

 

And proves you don’t need a big budget to make a great film....

 

Just some great music, a clever caper... and a nagging reminder that the ends should probably never justify the means...

 

So be careful who you root for...

 

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