A bee picture you need to see through the LookingGlass.

“The Rivals of Amziah King” is another one of those movies I’m surprised neither Quentin Tarantino nor any of the Coen brothers had anything to do with. Let’s begin at a fast food restaurant with some music, continue with a young person in critical condition, merge with some crime in the mix, and paint it with practical lighting, and you’d have a movie like this.

Set in Oklahoma and filmed in Alabama, Matthew McConaughey stars as Amziah King, the beekeeper and musician with a band, who is loved by his community. His loyal team players include a lawyer (Rob Morgan), a Boomhauer (Scott Sheppard), a barefoot fiddler (Owen Teague), and a discharged Marine (Jake Horowitz), while a young dope (Tony Revolori) joins the team but gets comically injured on his first night on the job. The man is trying to help the police solve a crime, but then he ends up dealing with the screwball comedy situation. Hell of a night for him.

And here’s when the film’s rising young star pops in. Amziah reunites with his foster daughter Kateri (newcomer Angelina LookingGlass), who left the foster care system and works at a local diner. Instead of the estranged daughter cliches that happen a lot in movies, she’s happy to reunite with him. She’s even happy to have him as her mentor with the bees and to sing in his band. Just like the good old days.

So all is happy and right in the world. At one point, they deal with a school in peril with some “Ghostbusters” reminiscence, as they deal with a swarm of bees, while the allergic kids are evacuated and a bus driver ends up in critical condition. And throughout Amzeah’s teachings, he and Kateri harvest the honey, and they sing with their band. Nothing to worry about.

That is until their bee hives get stolen, and Amziah passes away. So, the rest of the movie goes to Kateri, who is willing to finish her foster father’s work and find out the real criminal behind this whole mess. And it might be the agriculture tycoon Dob McCoy (Kurt Russell). He would seem like an ideal tycoon with the sunglasses, toothpick, and cane. And that’s why a girl like Kateri is required for a movie like this.

“The Rivals of Amiah King” was written and directed by Andrew Patterson, who made his debut with “The Vast of Night.” And both these movies he wrote under the pseudonym James Montague. And in his second film, he shows a dangerous, stylish riveting, sometimes comical look with the bee industry. He starts with some high spirits, centers with some pathos, and continues with a revenge plot, and it all delivers.

Here are a few details I’ve found out about Angelina LookingGlass so far. She is also a singer with a Native American heritage of four tribes: Oglala Lakota, Navajo, Seneca, and Kiowa Comanche. She also appeared in three episodes of “Dark Winds.” And she did train with the Stella Adler Conservatory in New York City in 2021. And now that she makes her film debut with “The Rivals of Amiah King,” I have to say that she is the film’s Queen Bee: full of spirit, courage, and determination. And her collaboration with McConaughey, Horowitz, Sheppard, and Cole Sprouse (as a fast food employee) helps prove her moxie.

In a summer of crime movies under the radar (“Motor City,” “The Furious,” “Carolina Caroline,” and “Tuner,” etc.), this movie has the actors delivering their dialogue and outfits, the story challenging our senses, and the music elevating the honey world. And I assure you the bees are real and not CGI. There are scenes when McConaughey and LookingGlass have bees on their arms and bodies, and I just found out he is allegoric to them. She got stung by a few, but she’s fine.