Scott Carlin (Pete Davidson) is a twenty-four year old who dreams of being a tattoo artist whilst smoking pot with his mates and generally going nowhere in life. But when his sister Claire (Maude Apatow) goes to college and his mother Margie (Marisa Tomei) starts dating Ray (Bill Burr) he has to confront the issues that are holding him back in life. 

The King Of Staten Island is partly based on Pete Davidson’s life. At the age of seven his firefighter father died in service during the September 11th attacks. Director Judd Apatow co-wrote this film with Davidson and Dave Sirus and have utilised moments in Davidson’s life to create a comedy about a man forced to face the grief that has put his whole life on hold. The film is dedicated to Scott Davidson’s memory. 

When we first meet Scott he is having suicidal thoughts whilst driving. We then get to see him holding the people he loves at arms length, whether it’s his girlfriend Kelsey (Bel Powley) or his mother and sister. And of course there are his fellow layabout friends who mean well but do not bring out his best behaviours. The kickstart that he needs to start considering how the grief his fathers death has impacted him is his mother dating a firefighter. Something that forces him to face his memory of his dad and who he wants to be. 

Apatow and Davidson are both incredibly talented and funny people. Apatow’s previous films include Knocked Up, The Forty Year Old Virgin and Train Wreck. Whilst Davidson is a stand up most famous for his work on Saturday Night Live. Add to this mix the comedian and creator of F Is For Family, Bill Burr and you know that this film will have funny moments. But the issue is that this film requires a huge amount of editing. It has a running time of 136 minutes and has far too many lengthy protracted periods of meandering for it to be really interesting. There was even a moment at the 90 minute mark where I thought it had hit it’s stride as our lead character finally starts to realise what he needs to do, but after some scenes that really clicked it reverted back to its meandering. 

Davidson shows promise as a comedic actor even if he is playing a cipher of himself, whilst Apatow proves again that he could profit from having an editor that challenged him harder in the final cut.