All The King's Men Review

September 25, 2006 11:55 AM
by [email]

An audience member muttered this about twenty minutes into “All the King’s Men,” Steve Zaillian’s long-winded adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s novel, which boasts much star power but ultimately gives no power to its stars.

They are - and it’s an impressive list - Anthony Hopkins, Mark Ruffalo, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Patricia Clarkson, and James Gandolfini. Smoldering at the center is Sean Penn as Willie Stark, a fictional Louisiana politician loved by the poor and hated by just about everyone else. When the film opens Willie has secured his post as governor and has his sights set on the White House. Five years earlier the film really begins as Tiny Duffy (Gandolfini) assures Stark that he’s the perfect man for public office.

This a film that suffers from what I like to refer to as “Vanilla Sky” syndrome - flashbacks and forward flashes and all around confusion without any rhyme or reason. The first twenty minutes are dull and incoherent (subtitles, indeed), and by the time Clarkson shows up as Stark’s fiery press secretary and sometimes lover, even her singular energy is not so welcome anymore.

“King’s Men” is narrated by Jack Burden (Law), a journalist who starts off writing about Stark and ends up working for him. Though the narration seems to be more interested in adding chunks of text that sound serious and literary than moving the story forward, it does introduce us to some pivotal characters: Judge Irwin (Hopkins), Jack’s surrogate father and a Stark denouncer, Adam Stanton (Ruffalo), a doctor and Jack’s close childhood friend, and his sister Anne (Winslet), the glowing object of desire for more than one of the male characters.

After an endless drone of incoherent politicizing that made me long for Aaron Sorkin, I hoped Anne and Adam would give the film some sort of intrigue, however Hollywoodized and clichéd. Finally, I thought, conflict beyond wordy hotel room conversations. Finally, a satisfyingly thorny love triangle.

I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. Ruffalo emerges as perhaps the most important character in the story next to Stark, but he’s basically relegated to acting mad, looking sober, and turning crazy. And he’s not alone. Gandolfini gets to look jovial. Winslet gets to look beautiful. Law gets to look contemplative and peck away at a typewriter. There’s a love scene between Winslet and Law that, had we cared about their characters, would have been devastating but had my friend whispering “what the....?” Even the powerful-as-always Penn seems to be straining, bogged down by a script that ultimately plays out as an overzealous Oscar bid.

Jackie Earle Haley (also phenomenal alongside a terrific Winslet in the upcoming “Little Children”) makes a strong impression as Stark’ fearsome bodyguard, as does Kathy Baker as Jack’s mother. But they’re not onscreen enough to really matter.

Given the all-star cast and the A-list writer-director (Zaillian notably penned "Schindler's List"), “King’s Men,” which was filmed to Oscar-winning effect in 1949, should have been an awards front-runner. And maybe that’s the problem. In striving to film an epic and aiming for out-of-proportion greatness, Zaillian seems to lose sight of his characters and his plot. Despite good intentions, “All the King’s Men” is all style and no substance- you can see the blood and sweat and tears but you can’t feel it.

Grade: C-
By Jenny Halper