Movie Time: Call Her King

We got the opportunity to check the latest original film from BET titled Call Her King. It stars Naturi Naughton, Lance Gross, Jason Mitchell and Nicholas Turturro. The movie is about a judge named Jaeda King(hence the title) who has sentenced a man (Mitchell) to death but before they can escort the prisoner out of the courthouse his brother (Gross) hijacks the courthouse and Judge King must fight her way out of the courthouse amiss corruption and other forces out to get her.

The movie is almost 90 minutes and for us it was too long. The story seems to be formulaic to be a action thriller and to be honest we couldn't take Naturi seriously as a action star based on her past work. The script was weighed down by politics and old espionage stories. Directed by Wes Miller (A Day To Die) it makes sense that you get old school thriller vibes. The first 20 minutes of the film isn't too bad as the courthouse and the judge's chambers are the center of attention. The dialogue is great between the counselor and the judge who works a plan to place the prisoner to death. After 20 minutes the film gets jumbled for the next 30 minutes where we see random facts such as the judge's behavior towards the counselor or the hijackers creates a trail to expose corruption in the judicial system. The acting was subpar at best. There was too much cliché arguments between the judge and the hijackers. The action scenes were decent we think because it's Naturi it's a surprise but in reality it wasn't that great.

We give BET or BET Plus for attempting to create a action thriller for its streaming services (possible sequel too) but the attempt was good on paper but executed poorly. Hopefully they'll try again with a better script and director for a do over. Call Her King is out now on BET Plus but watch at your own risk.