Lisbon, New York City. Two lonely men. One is a doctor, a disgruntled left-wing idealist who drowns his bitterness in alcohol; the other is an almost autistic young man, whose only commitment is to motorcycles and speed. One, "Doc", who lives in the docklands of Lisbon, has left his wife Rozzie after she gave birth to a child, for a life of justice in Africa. The other, Jimmy, discovers after the death of his mother (the same Rozzie), that he has a father somewhere in Portugal. So the son decides to find this father, to ask him for accounts, to settle his account perhaps. But when he meets Doc, it's not a father he faces (Doc himself doesn't think he's worthy of the name) but a human being with a troubled past, a present in which he struggles, weakened, to survive and help those who suffer (such as this former sailor who suffers from brain cancer), in two words, an imperfect but endearing being.
Nothing more. But that is enough for Robert Kramer, who shows his ability to sustain the interest of the spectator without resorting to the slightest action scene, which is not an easy task. The director even manages to be poignant during the last scenes of the father and son "reunion".
To sum it all up, let's say there are no useless effects, only the essential. And a remarkable accuracy of tone. The film is certainly not wildly cheerful, but it is never self-indulgent or overly naturalistic.
All in all, "Doc's Kingdom" turns out to be a surprisingly touching work, especially coming from Robert Kramer, who got us used to purely, quite cold political films ("Ice", "Guns", "Diesel",...). This overall good impression is reinforced by the excellent interpretation of Paul McIsaac (as Doc) and Vincent Gallo (playing Jimmy). All these reasons make "Doc's Kingdom" a (too little seen) film to discover.
