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Sean Crawley is a young man with no attachments who earns
money doing odd jobs. When Duke Wayne offers him a cash-in-hand
job following a man day and night he jumps at the chance.
Then Duke takes Sean to meet Ray Matthews, a local businessman
who offers him $13,000 to kill the man. Although he is expected
to fail, thereby seriously frightening the man, he messily
and somewhat clumsily succeeds...
Whilst
the realisation of what he has done haunts him, he discovers
that the dead man had been investigating corruption surrounding
Matthews and his shady building enterprises. When demanding
his money, Sean is physically threatened and ordered to leave
town. He tells them he has the dead man's evidence file hidden
and refuses to tell them where it is, so they drive him to
a remote ranch where they periodically strike his head with
a golf club, hoping to turn him into a vegetable. Eventually
escaping, Sean makes his way back to town where he gets treatment
and a bed at a mission. Susan, the beautiful widow of Sean's
victim works there, and they strike up a close relationship.
But everything goes sour when she finds his file, and Sean
is obliged to take his revenge against Matthews, Duke, and
their cohorts.
On the surface King of the Ants is an average tale
of corruption and murder, but I have to confess it grows on
you, slowly hooking you so that, even though you guess roughly
how it's going to end, you want to see it through anyway.
I
suppose it's the age-old David and Goliath story of the little
man (the "Ant" of the title) rising up in the face
of adversity. It's also about survival, endurance and revenge,
base human instincts. This could so easily have looked silly;
so many films about local villains tend to drown in cringeworthy
dialogue, but King of the Ants, by luck or good judgement
avoids the normal pitfalls. In fact, at the start of the story
the filming appears amateurish, as if handled by a technophobe
with a camcorder, but this is soon forgotten when the rest
is completed competently and on an increasing scale, considering
the cast is very small. It almost makes you think it was done
on purpose... but not quite.
One
drawback is Daniel Baldwin, so smooth as the corrupt businessman
that he almost slips over several times on his ice-coolness.
However, it is good to see George Wendt (Norm in Cheers)
playing the hard man Duke, in contrast to his more well known
half-drunken slob character.
King
of the Ants is not so good that you'll want to watch it
on a weekly basis, but it's well worth going out of your way
to view once... perhaps on rental. Best described as an unmistakably
low-key but enjoyable romp.
Ty
Power
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