All the King's Men [DVD] [2006] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Dismissed by the critics as portentous and vague, this remake of All The Kings Men has the makings of a great film and features another incredible performance by Sean Penn. Even if all the parts don't necessarily make a great whole, the film is still totally watchable.

Sean Penn is Willie Stark, the Southern country boy who wants to be governor, who wears his hair cropped close at the sides and standing up straight on top. Willie begins his career as a lawyer and local official, and, as he sizes people up, he gauging weakness and strengths.

Quietly malevolent, Penn steadily builds his performance so that Stark - although his path is paved with good intentions - turns into a screaming and symbol of the oppressed, repelling evil capitalists and corrupt politicians and promising to build schools, roads, and bridges.

Attacks on him by other politicians are, he says, attacks on the people. In a montage of speeches, we see the populist turn into a demagogue. Watching his rise to power is witnessed through Jack Burden (Jude Law), an outcast from a wealthy family who works as a newspaperman.

Jack joins up with Willie and becomes his confidant and his hatchet man and the center of the movie is the bond between two utterly different men. Jack is represents an offshoot of the old world moneyed elite and Willie is the working class rebel made good.

Director by Steven Zaillian steadily moves the story between the past and the present as he introduces all the supporting players, who in various ways influence Willie's rise to the governorship. There's Jack's ineffably cultivated childhood friends Anne (Kate Winslet) and Adam Stanton (Mark Ruffalo), Anthony Hopkins, as a crotchety old judge whose actions threaten to bring Willie down, and James Gandolfini and Patricia Clarkson, as astute political operatives who stage-manage political Willie's campaign.

There's no doubt that All The King's Men is gorgeously fashioned and it features some great acting from its ensemble cast. Yes - the movie has problems, often coming across as a little too overproduced, with James Horner's music swelling and too overbearing throughout. And the tone of the film is often too self-important for its own good.

Zaillian does a good job, however, of showing how politics and power can corrupt. Stark becomes dishonest and crooked, but personal gain is not his goal. You admire him for wanting to help the people while at the same time you despise him for his underhanded methods and the way he tries to hold onto power at whatever cost.

Penn's performance is one of the best of his career. There is hardly a false step from beginning to end. He really does get to the heart of Stark's character, demonstrating how good people can often be blindsided by power and money, and transformed by trying to hold fast to what they believe to be right and just causes. Mike Leonard December 06.

3.5 stars

Willie Stark: Remember, it is not I who have won, but you. Your will is my strength, and your need is my justice, and I shall live in your right and your will. And if any man tries to stop me from fulfilling that right and that will, I'll break him. I'll break him with my bare hands, for I have the strength of many." IMDB

Willie Stark is the quintessential politician. He started out an honest man and then little by little the urge to win big takes over. The first little lie 'won't hurt them', and downhill from there. Robert Penn Warren's, Pulitizer Prize novel, by the same name 'All The King's Men' was inspired by the infamous Huey Long, Governor and Senator of Lousiana. But, then again, this movie could be about any politician. The making and breaking of a politician comes full fore. Robert Penn Warren observed firsthand, Huey Long, when he took a teaching job at Louisiana State University in 1934. He found the measure of the man.

Sean Penn as Willie Stark is a powerful take of the man. Somehow, something is missing, however, the full meaning of the man is not shown but implied. Jude Law as Jack Burden is an understated play but IMO he steals this movie. His character is full of the irony and the bleakness of the future of politics. He portrays the measure of a man caught in the grip of alcochol and finding his way. Anthony Hopkins as Judge Irwin lives up to his image of the world's greatest living actor. Seemingly honest and upright, but the misery is found once you dig deeply enough. Kate Winslet's characater, Anne Stanton, is so underplayed she could have sent in a stand in. Mark Ruffalo as Adam Stanton is well done. Patricia Clarkson as Sadie Burke plays the perfect foil to Willie Stark, but her character is not on screen enough to matter. James Gandolfini as Tiny Duffy, is a character that adds not much to this movie. We recognize him from 'The Sopranos' and that is his due.

"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about "All the King's Men" is how contemporary so many of its issues seem. Not only the classic question of means and ends, the validity of Stark's insistence that "good can always be made from bad," but also the question of who if anyone in American life speaks for the poor and dispossessed, a question that was last raised, ironically, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.When Penn's Stark cries out to his constituency, "Your will is my strength, your need is my justice," he is striking a chord that may yet be heard again."

Kenneth Turan

This movie kept my attention because of Jude Law's performance and the cinematogrophy. The scenery of Lousiana and New Orleans in particular. Beautiful in both aspects. A movie that speaks to us of our own political process. The movie follows Robert Penn Warren's novel closely and that mnay have been the downfall. Something is missing that would have made this move great. It is too subtle, too slow, too downplayed. I would, however, recommend this movie for the feel of the South, and the play of politics. Recommended. prisrob 3-17-07

I tend to raise the bar quite high in life and people find me too critical so imagine my surprise when I found a film I thought better than the general populace seem to. I must admit, I had preconceptions about the film being weak due to knowing it didn't have a high profile and therefore must have been a flop. I also thought the trailer was good and yet somehow simple and I like subtlety in my films. So this time the bar was set low and I was pleasantly rewarded by what I saw. I enjoyed it from start to finish.
First of all, the script is full of rich, poetic prose that most scripts aren't. It made me want to read the book. Second, Louisiana looks beautiful and so do the sets. It made me want to visit the place. Third, I didn't want the film to end. It made me want to watch the extras. I'm so glad that an epilogue was included. There are flaws but they didn't spoil the film for me. Those flaws are basically improbabilities and unexplained things and there's so much going on that is only hinted at it's like chunks of the story we'd like to see are missing (the senator's wife is all but brushed out of the film, we jump forward in time alot etc.) and people seem to behave in ways that they wouldn't in real life but welcome to the world of film where years have to be absurdly compressed into a couple of hours or less.
I think Sean Penn's performance is excellent, as usual, and though Jude Law has made too many films too quickly I think he's well suited to this. Anthony Hopkins doesn't excel himself but even Hopkins on autopilot is high quality. A good film.