Holly
10-04-2006, 10:21 AM
When a movie remake like “All the King’s Men” has the pedigree it does, in both story and cast, you hope for the best.
Unfortunately, the new screen version of Robert Penn Warren’s novel basically amounts to asking the question, “Why?” The answer actually isn’t too tough: Inspired by the true story of Louisiana governor Huey Long, the saga of a Southern politician’s rise and fall is meaty stuff. That had to have been the lure for adapter-director Steven Zaillian, the Oscar-winning screenwriter (“Schindler’s List”) who certainly assembled a top-notch cast for the effort.
Sean Penn assumes Broderick Crawford’s previous role as Willie Stark, a political novice to whom too much comes too soon, and he milks it for everything, using a fire-and-brimstone approach to get followers to do his bidding. That includes Jude Law as a reporter who falls under his spell, eventually abandoning his newspaper job to serve as Stark’s “front man.” If that seems like a promising calling at first, you just know it won’t be long before the p.r. guy has to question what he’s doing for his boss.
The acting prestige certainly isn’t lessened by the other players: Kate Winslet as a politician’s daughter linked to both men; Mark Ruffalo (“You Can Count on Me”) as her brother; Patricia Clarkson as another woman pivotal in Stark’s life; James Gandolfini as a political bigwig; and Anthony Hopkins as another figure of power and influence. That’s big casting ammunition, to be sure, and it’s understandably one of the main selling points “All the King’s Men” falls back on.
However, one of the biggest problems with the new “All the King’s Men” is that it races through the character development we should see in Stark. It tells us of the great aspirations he has, but it deprives us of letting us see how he falls prey to the darker side of power. It’s almost as if one minute, he’s “good” and the next, he’s “bad.” It’s essential that we understand just how that happened, and what seems like hurried editing -- possibly the reason the film was delayed from its intended release last Christmas -- ultimately costs the film greatly.
Though he’s one of the best movie actors we have today, Penn simply seems to be overemoting at many points; giving us more of the arc, undoubtedly sitting on an editing-room floor somewhere, that takes Stark from point A to point Z would have helped alleviate that. And it makes the entire movie lopsided, since in turn, we surely would have understood more about the characters who orbit around Stark. Instead, most of them merely seem like saps, and it’s hard to care about them -- or what happens to them.
If you’re simply up for seeing a gathering of acting luminaries, it’s hard to beat “All the King’s Men.” However, if you’re up for a movie that makes kind of the impact it so feverishly promises, it’s regrettably pretty easy to beat.
(Rated PG-13)
Unfortunately, the new screen version of Robert Penn Warren’s novel basically amounts to asking the question, “Why?” The answer actually isn’t too tough: Inspired by the true story of Louisiana governor Huey Long, the saga of a Southern politician’s rise and fall is meaty stuff. That had to have been the lure for adapter-director Steven Zaillian, the Oscar-winning screenwriter (“Schindler’s List”) who certainly assembled a top-notch cast for the effort.
Sean Penn assumes Broderick Crawford’s previous role as Willie Stark, a political novice to whom too much comes too soon, and he milks it for everything, using a fire-and-brimstone approach to get followers to do his bidding. That includes Jude Law as a reporter who falls under his spell, eventually abandoning his newspaper job to serve as Stark’s “front man.” If that seems like a promising calling at first, you just know it won’t be long before the p.r. guy has to question what he’s doing for his boss.
The acting prestige certainly isn’t lessened by the other players: Kate Winslet as a politician’s daughter linked to both men; Mark Ruffalo (“You Can Count on Me”) as her brother; Patricia Clarkson as another woman pivotal in Stark’s life; James Gandolfini as a political bigwig; and Anthony Hopkins as another figure of power and influence. That’s big casting ammunition, to be sure, and it’s understandably one of the main selling points “All the King’s Men” falls back on.
However, one of the biggest problems with the new “All the King’s Men” is that it races through the character development we should see in Stark. It tells us of the great aspirations he has, but it deprives us of letting us see how he falls prey to the darker side of power. It’s almost as if one minute, he’s “good” and the next, he’s “bad.” It’s essential that we understand just how that happened, and what seems like hurried editing -- possibly the reason the film was delayed from its intended release last Christmas -- ultimately costs the film greatly.
Though he’s one of the best movie actors we have today, Penn simply seems to be overemoting at many points; giving us more of the arc, undoubtedly sitting on an editing-room floor somewhere, that takes Stark from point A to point Z would have helped alleviate that. And it makes the entire movie lopsided, since in turn, we surely would have understood more about the characters who orbit around Stark. Instead, most of them merely seem like saps, and it’s hard to care about them -- or what happens to them.
If you’re simply up for seeing a gathering of acting luminaries, it’s hard to beat “All the King’s Men.” However, if you’re up for a movie that makes kind of the impact it so feverishly promises, it’s regrettably pretty easy to beat.
(Rated PG-13)