See It in Theaters! — The Rivals of Amziah King
4 min read
The movie staring Matthew McConaughey, follows Amziah King, who reunites with his former foster daughter after many years apart, according to IMDb. Photo by Denise Jans on Unsplash and Black Bear Media.
By Lucas Curry, Associate Faculty member and Co-Chair of the Film and Journalism Departments at San Bernardino Valley College
This might be one of the more entertaining films of summer 2026, and I’m afraid no one will see it in theaters.
The film opens at a small-town drive-in restaurant, the kind that only seems to exist where time hasn’t moved, as a group of musicians forms and begins playing. It struck me as reminiscent of the famous Talking Heads concert film from 1984, Stop Making Sense, where each musician comes out one at a time until the most eccentric of them all, the lead singer, arrives to a hero’s welcome. This is our title character, Amziah King (Matthew McConaughey), making his entrance into the story.
Just as the band orders food and begins to play, they’re interrupted by the local sheriff, Sunderland (Bruce Davis), who calls on Amziah — whose day job is honey farming — to help determine the rightful owner of some stolen honey. Yes, the plot of this film centers on stolen honey. Is this going to be a remake of the Charles Bronson film Mr. Majestyk (1974), where a peaceful watermelon farmer is hassled to the point of revenge?
After a hair-raising evening, Amziah ends up in a diner where he finds his old foster daughter, Kateri, played by Angelina Looking Glass. They strike up a quick conversation, and before long she rejoins her old family to help with the honey farm. This is where the film really takes on what Quentin Tarantino calls the “hangout film.” This style of storytelling harkens back to older westerns such as Rio Bravo (1959). It’s through this kind of construction that we come to know these characters simply by spending time with them. There’s not much of a plot per se — it’s more about seeing them as they are, letting their actions reveal who they are, and if you pay attention, you’ll catch some nuggets of foreshadowing.
The music throughout this sequence is very much in the western tradition, again recalling Rio Bravo and its scenes of Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson singing together. It’s also a nice callback to John Ford westerns like The Searchers or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, where, in the middle of the action, there’s suddenly time for a song or a dance. There’s also a wonderful sequence where Amziah teaches Kateri about potlucks — her growing appreciation for them, and for a small town’s love of local music, will come in handy as the story moves forward. As I said, this is a classic revenge story, and the film’s antagonist, played by Kurt Russell as Dob McCoy, enters the picture. The bees from Amziah’s farm are stolen, and through various twists and turns, it falls to Kateri to get them back. We learn that she is Native and that her mother had a troubled history, which has left Kateri with a deep-seated distrust of others. She deals with those who cross the people she cares about in clever and audacious ways. This leads to a wonderful sequence in which Kateri and another standout, Jake Horowitz as Remmick, take the beehives back down the river.
This film certainly draws on the roots of classic westerns, but transplants them into a modern setting — or, depending on your point of view, a place time forgot. The story could just as easily have been set in the 1970s or ’80s, but it happens to unfold now. There’s a timelessness to it. Another Wayne western it brings to mind is The Cowboys (1972), directed by Mark Rydell, who passed away this week. Like that film, this one places its older lead, Amziah, among people younger than himself in support of a mission, pitting them against those older and more experienced. In The Cowboys, the kids have to drive the cattle to market; in this film, it’s up to the kids to bring the bees home.
Standout performances come from Jake Horowitz as Remmick and Angelina Looking Glass as Kateri. Beyond being a western, the film carries shades of noir — you don’t mind that our heroine takes some shortcuts, because she has to; it’s how she gets ahead. With that noir touch comes a target on the ultra-wealthy and powerful: in this small town, they aren’t protected, and our sheriff, Sunderland (Davis), largely turns a blind eye to how Kateri wins the day. Some of the songs performed by Amziah’s band are about Christ, letting us know that in their version of Christianity, Christ doesn’t walk with the ultra-wealthy but with those on the fringes and the margins. Everyone does the best they can to help each other out.
See this one in theaters for sure — at Harkins Redlands and the 2nd Street Cinema in Beaumont, as well as other venues throughout the Inland Empire.
