I once heard a saying about the art of filmmaking that explains a lot about movies today. That statement is, “Having all the right elements for a movie doesn’t assure a blockbuster, but having all the wrong ones guarantees a flop.”
With a popular novel from Robert Penn Warren, award-winning and highly regarded actors playing the parts and an Oscar winning writer, turned director at the controls it seems “All the King’s Men” has all the elements to be an interesting morality tale of idealism and political corruption. However, having all the right elements for a movie doesn’t assure a blockbuster.
Sean Penn’s most recent dramatic role – which apparently is all he will consider doing since his last comedic role, not including a brief stint on two episodes of “Friends,” was as slacker Jeff Spicoli in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” almost 25 years ago, which might be the last time he cracked a smile in front of the camera – comes in the form of Willie Stark, a Louisiana governor, loosely based on Governor Huey P. Long, who wants nothing more than to build a better state for his “hick” constituents. Yet, this passion for new roads, bridges, schools and an overall better life must come at a price for someone, but the cost may not be a monetary one.
Stark enters the governor’s race as an honest and loyal husband who neither drinks nor smokes and wants only the best for those around him. Somewhere between intense campaign speeches about his fellow “hicks” and nailing up the competition to winning the election and butting heads with all of the state senators Stark becomes a shadow of his former self. He begins drinking heavily, chasing so many women he needs an abacus to keep up with all the women he is with and takes a lesson in persuasion from Gandolfini’s more famous role on HBO’s “The Sopranos.”
“All the King’s Men” isn’t really just about the king though. This movie shows what takes place to the souls of the men and women underneath the king. These underlings, whom Stark uses like weapons in a game of chess, come in the form of some outstanding players who never really show what they are made of. They include Jude Law, James Gandolfini, Patricia Clarkson, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Hopkins.
A star-studded cast and material that was previously used to win a best picture and best actor Oscar doesn’t come together after 120 minutes to really drum up any real emotional response from the audience. It ends, credits roll, audience gets up and nothing more is said.
Steven Zaillian undertook this project probably thinking he was on the road to another Academy Award, which he won for writing “Schindler’s List.” What Zaillian may have failed to take into account is Academy members have to actually make it through the entire film without getting so frustrated with the sluggish pace and meandering storylines they turn the movie off before it ends.
Zaillian’s choice to have Jude Law’s journalist, turned political right-hand man character, Jack Burden, play the narrator isn’t the problem. It is bringing in Burden’s personal problems of lost love and family turmoil that Zaillian starts to lose us. The movie strays from Stark’s battle with the senators attempt to impeach him, which is never really understood for what reason, to Burden’s battle between right and wrong that involves his godfather Judge Irwin, played by Hopkins.
Wonderful actors, a wonderful story and a wonderful director unfortunately don’t make a wonderful film. It’s not a bad film, just one that is easily avoided.
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