The actor is willing to be truly unlikable in appropriate moments, but the film keeps making him unimpeachable. There’s a dramatic skittishness here that can’t be ignored. It’s the screenplay by Zach Baylin that keeps threatening to undermine his performance. Whether surveying his wounds after his umpteenth violent run-in with neighborhood riff-raff (“Daddy got beat up again!” one of his kids announces), or realizing there’s no way he can help his daughter get out of her own head on the court, Smith excels at showing the wounded man under all the bravado. The scenes where he shows Williams’ vulnerability have a wounded quality that lingers long after the moment has passed. Despite two Oscar nominations, Smith is rarely given credit for his dramatic acting chops. He’s playing a man who refuses to acknowledge anything besides his own opinion, yet he is hauntingly effective when forced into silence. Though Smith’s characterization is oversized, his best moments occur when he’s cornered into dropping his façade. He is larger than life, and we need a larger-than-life personality to play him, someone who can successfully overpower your defenses with charm. His words came back to me as I watched his performance Richard Williams is always on, tossing off asides and comments that are often hilarious and mean enough for a Madea movie. Smith talked about how he uses humor as a defense mechanism, an action to hide his fears. He read from his book, performed songs and chatted with Spike Lee. The day before my screening, I saw Smith live on his book tour at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn.
When Mario van Peebles decided to play his father, Melvin, in “Baadasssss,” the elder van Peebles told him “don’t make me too nice.” Will Smith adheres to this philosophy, though “King Richard” keeps pulling him back from the brink.
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