Kings Ransom (film)

Plot

Malcolm King (Anderson) is a wealthy, selfish, obnoxious businessman who is about to divorce his wife Renee (Smith). She plans to ruin him financially during the court proceedings, and King is willing to do anything to protect his fortune.

He enlists his mistress, Peaches (Hall), and her brother, Herb (Murphy), to stage a mock kidnapping. They are to make and receive a huge ransom demand, which would keep the money safe from his wife.

Unfortunately for him, two other people have similar plans to kidnap him; Angela (Parker), an aggrieved employee and Corey (Mohr), a good-natured yet hapless nobody who lives in his grandmother's basement and needs $10,000 after being threatened by his adopted sister.

Cast

Box office

King's Ransom was produced on a $15 million budget, but only grossed $2,137,685 on its opening weekend and ranked at #10 at the box office. It was released in 1,508 theaters and had $1,417 average. The film eventually closed on June 2, 2005 upon grossing $4,008,527 in the domestic market, and $135,125 in the foreign market for a worldwide total of $4,143,652. Altogether, the film ended up a huge disappointment, commercially.

Critical response

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes currently gives the film a score of 2% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 2.4/10, and the site's consensus stating, "Filled with crass dialogue, unlikable characters, and overdone slapstick gags, King's Ransom is an utterly inept would-be comedy." Another review aggregation website, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 from critics, gave the film a metascore of 11 based on 13 reviews, indicating "overwhelming dislike".