Pete Davidson strikes me as kind of a weird guy. He’s a comedian, so that is hardly a set-back or anything. He’s just kind of odd. I don’t watch a lot of Saturday Night Live, or even follow a lot of celebrity news for that matter, but I am vaguely aware that he has been engaged to and frequently dated celebrity women that, were he not a popular comedian, might be seen as out of his league. I also know he’s been rather public about his battles with mental illness, and one of his running SNL gags is that he isn’t sure why he hasn’t been fired yet. Also, his small role in The Suicide Squad felt rather satisfying to me even as I refrain from saying why.
But he did get a starring role in a movie from Judd Apatow that came out in 2020, and Apatow does have a habit of finding new comedy talent, so that sure sounded promising.
Scott Carlin (Davidson) is a directionless young man whose best aspiration is to open a restaurant/tattoo parlor where he can give people tattoos, his only true ambition in life, while other people enjoy a good meal. Other than that, he spends a lot of time with his pothead buddies, getting high, and not quite ready to commit to Kelsey (Bel Powley), a childhood friend that he hangs out and has sex with. He still lives at home with his mother Margie (Marisa Tomei) and kid sister Claire (Maude Apatow), but Claire, unlike Scott, is graduating from high school and going off to college soon. Scott’s father was a firefighter who died while fighting a fire when Scott was a small child, and Scott has been somewhat angry about that ever since.
That actually leads to problem for Scott. After a failed and stupid attempt to tattoo an obvious minor, the child’s father Ray (Bill Burr) comes to complain to Margie, and the two hit it off and start dating. Ray is a firefighter himself, and this sits poorly with Scott. Is it because of his first encounter had the man berating him for his own stupidity, or is it because he’s a firefighter? The movie suggests it is more the latter as Scott still holds a lot of anger towards his father as he was initially happy to hear his mother is dating until he learns who she is dating. Can Scott get over his resentments, learn to move on, and maybe grow up a bit?
Actually, that in a nutshell could describe a lot of Judd Apatow’s movies. He has a formula in which some sort of immature person needs to grow up a bit, often with help from a romantic relationship and despite the efforts of the character’s immature longtime friends, and these movies often act as “breakout” roles for the lead actor. That could describe Steve Carell in The 40 Year Old Virgin, Seth Rogan in Knocked Up, and Amy Schumer in Trainwreck. While these movies are all a lot of fun and are tailored to the comedic style of the lead actor, they do follow a formula. But the formula for the most part works, so don’t take that as a complaint.
As for The King of Staten Island, Davidson’s movie is fun, funny, and has some heart, but like many comedies of its nature, it will work best on someone who likes and appreciates Davidson’s style of comedy. As much as it may be similar to an Apatow formula, Davidon’s Scott has a more disreputable air about himself than many past protagonists, and that comes more from how he carries himself. I mean, he wants to be a tattoo artist, and at one point he goes out of his way to mock a large man with muscular tattoos, but he still comes across as more sketchy than Seth Rogan’s character in Knocked Up, and that character and his friends were compiling a list for a website to say where famous women were naked in movies. I think though, for me, as much as I liked this movie, I wouldn’t call myself a Davidson fan. He’s just a little too weird for my tastes.
Grade: B+
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