The King is as initially enigmatic and ultimately arbitrary as its title, which refers to Elvis Presley. Gael Garcia Bernal plays a character who incidentally has also been named Elvis, and that's why the movie is called The King. The character could just as easily been named Conan, thus making this movie The Barbarian. At least then the title would have held some accurate extra meaning.
Recently discharged from the Navy, Elvis wanders into Corpus Christi in search of the man who illegitimately fathered him. That man, Pastor Sandow (William Hurt), is the local preacher, who has spawned a new family of Bible-belt stereotypes. His goody-two-shoes son sings in a Christian rock band and leads a schoolyard crusade for the inclusion of intelligent design in the curriculum, and his prim and proper daughter is secretly more than willing to participate in the oldest and most clichéd of all preacher's daughter scandals.
What does Elvis want with these people? Unfortunately, he's a little too bland for that to ever become clear. Sandow dismisses him as being the result of an indiscretion that occurred prior to his being "saved," and Elvis walks away from the confrontation without expression. He then proceeds to have an incestuous affair with his half-sister and eventually murders his half brother.
At first it seems as though the story aims to punish Sandow and his family for their Christian hypocrisies, but it isn't until Sandow endeavors to set things right that things really go to hell. The final scene seems to suggest that the film is rather cynically condemning the ideas of repentance, forgiveness and redemption. All it really does is make you feel sorry for a group of holier-than-thou evangelists. Quite a feat, but certainly not what the film intended.
The King bears more than a passing resemblance to Down in the Valley, which recently came to Vegas. Both feature sociopath drifters who become attached to families through intimacies with their daughters (which could have been avoided if the fathers were slightly more attentive). And both films shift into tragic allegory by the end. But having sympathized with Edward Norton's wannabe cowboy, we understand what Down in the Valley's climactic gunfight means. Not so with The King's descent into hellfire. Elvis never hints at his motivation. They say the Lord works in mysterious ways, but he's got nothing on these filmmakers.