After its debut at this year’s Sundance, “Charm City Kings” was poised to have a great run in theaters thanks to a distribution deal with Sony Pictures Classics. In fact, the film was going to play at SXSW and then get a release in April. However, the pandemic changed all that and the film kept getting delayed from the spring into the summer. Eventually, Sony sold the distribution rights to HBO Max and months later, we’re finally getting “Charm City Kings” without even having to leave our homes.
As seen in the new trailer for the film, “Charm City Kings” tells the story of a young kid in Baltimore that idolizes the Midnight Clique, a group of people that ride their motorcycles around the city doing tricks and showing off. And for the young boy, he is willing to do just about anything to get the money to buy a bike and join the group.
The film stars Meek Mill, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Teyonah Parris, Chino Braxton, Lakeyria “Wheelie Queen” Doughty, Donielle Tremaine Hansley, Kenzii Curtis, Chandler DuPont, David A. MacDonald, and Will Catlett. “Charm City Kings” is directed by Angel Manuel Soto, who previously helmed the features “The Farm” and “Frailty.”
We caught the film when it debuted at this year’s Sundance. In our review, we called “Charm City Kings” a “beautiful and important, unabashedly Black, yet rarely traumatic, and almost always determined statement. Soto has crafted an incredible empathetic narrative, one mile of road at a time.”
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“Charm City Kings” was originally supposed to be released in theaters in April before it was pushed to August, due to the pandemic. Now, the film is set to hit HBO Max on October 8. You can watch the new trailer below.
Here’s the synopsis:
In this gritty coming-of-age drama, fourteen-year-old Mouse (Jahi Di’Allo Winston) desperately wants to join the Midnight Clique, an infamous group of Baltimore dirt-bike riders who rule the summertime streets. His older brother, Stro, was their top rider before his tragic death—a loss that consumes Mouse as much as his passion for bikes. Mouse’s mom (Teyonah Parris) and his police mentor, Detective Rivers (William Catlett), work overtime to help the charismatic teen reach his full potential, but when the Midnight Clique’s leader, Blax (Meek Mill), takes the boy under his wing, the lure of revving his own dirt bike skids Mouse toward a road way past the straight and narrow.