A King with No Power
You don't mess with John 'King' Marley (Richard Harrison) and so when his brother is murdered and his brother's wife, Carol (Anne Puskin), is raped he is out looking for revenge. And the men he is looking for are part of the Benson gang and nothing is going to stop him from bringing each one of them down. What King doesn't know is that his friend Brian Foster (Klaus Kinski) controls the Benson gang as they illegally transport guns across the border for him.
"Autopilot movie" it is a term I use to describe a movie which feels like everyone involved was doing their job but nothing more which tends to make for an okay but forgettable experience. That is how "His Name Was King" comes across as it is a routine western about a brother seeking revenge on a gang who done his family wrong and discovering that behind the gang is some one they thought was a friend. There is little more to it than this which makes its 90 minute running length feel a whole lot longer than it is.
In a way the most disappointing aspect of all this is that the acting from the likes of Richard Harrison and Klaus Kinski ends up so ordinary. It's not that Harrison and Kinski do anything wrong, it is purely down to the fact they don't do anything special either. About as special as things get in "His Name Was King" is the pleasantly chirpy soundtrack which deserves to have been used in something better than this.
What this all boils down to is that "His Name Was King" is by no means a bad movie and at times this spaghetti western is entertaining. But it is such an ordinary western that you are not sorry once it is over.
