By Nancy deWolf Smith
"Kingdom," which began this week, is set in a mixed martial arts
training studio in southern California. Along with exciting if
graphic fight sequences and a good soundtrack, it includes
unpleasantly crude sex scenes. The closest thing to girl power in
the first few episodes comes when one woman asks another: "Is it
weird, being a flower in a business of brutes?" and receives the
reply: "No, I can be a pretty hard bitch."
Yet there's nothing wrong about a male-centric show when it
illuminates its subject. "Kingdom" pretty much does that with an
observation by studio owner and former MMA star Alvey Kulina (Frank
Grillo): "Most guys run from fights," he says, "because they don't
want the answer to the inevitable question that they whisper to
themselves: Am I one of the weak--am I one of the strong? Where do
I line up in the pecking order?"
Fighters, Alvey notes, thrive on those questions. So now that he
has stopped asking himself such things, life has lost some of its
meaning.
Fortunately for the story, Alvey's old friend Ryan Wheeler (Matt
Lauria) isn't finished asking. He just doesn't realize that yet.
Newly out of prison, now in a halfway house and apparently tamed by
therapy and drug and alcohol testing, Ryan no longer feels like the
MMA monster he once was.
He's still got it, though. Women can tell. Even Ryan's creepy
parole officer can't hide envy at the sight of his tattooed charge:
"You look like an Iron Maiden poster," he gasps. When Ryan visits
the studio--which is managed by Alvey's girlfriend and Ryan's ex
fiancée, Lisa (Kiele Sanchez)--the triangle starts its slow,
inevitable burn.
Other trouble has already arrived. Early on Alvey was threatened
by gangbanger types and laid them out with a few deft moves. They
later retaliated by wrecking the body and career of Alvey's
MMA-fighting son Nate (Nick Jonas, the pop star, who is a quiet
revelation in this role). Another son, Jay (Jonathan Tucker, as the
kind of maniac Sean Penn might have played in an earlier era), is
fixated on saving his mother, a drug-addicted prostitute, from a
pimp with the affect of an IRA provo.
For all the sweat swirling around, almost every character is
fleshed out with more than muscles. It smells like self-confidence.
Alvey, a former addict and bad father, is now wise enough to
recommend the reading of C.S. Lewis's 1942 devil dialogue, "The
Screwtape Letters." Alvey's coaching advice seems tough but almost
tender, so assuredly does he deliver it. Even Ryan, with
"Destroyer" emblazoned on his chest, has an emotional touch so
gentle--as with a crazy roommate--that it cracks the stereotype
mold.
For some viewers, "Kingdom" will trigger that pesky question:
Why are women so attracted to bad boys? Others may see it as a
minor version of Showtime's "Ray Donovan"--although "Kingdom" is
better compared with the 1955 movie "East of Eden."
No matter. Byron Balasco has created a drama about punching
power which can still locate heat and intimacy in the small act of
a woman removing a man's boxing gloves. Who can't get a kick out of
that?
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