"All the King's Men," a tale of corruption, betrayal and mistrust, hits on some high notes and completely bombs in others.
Flash back to 1950s Louisiana. Willie Stark (Sean Penn), an admirably honest and loyal man — both to the point where he solely drinks Orange Pop to please his wife and her disdain of alcohol — starts to receive media attention for his fight against government corruption in a local school building. The school goes out in flames, which makes Willie a sort of town hero. Government officials see this and immediately choose him to be their new puppet to run for governor.
Willie firmly believes he can serve for the people, until he realizes his campaign is a sham and he wasn't intended to win. Leaving his staged agenda behind, Willie gives passionate speeches to his fellow hicks. This is Sean Penn at his best, and it's easy to see why so much hype surrounds him. He portrays Willie as a likable underdog, a quirky but smart politician, and when Willie wins by a landslide, we are happy.
After this, the film takes a downward spiral. Steven Zaillian, the writer responsible for films like "Schindler's List" and "Gangs of New York," really missed the boat in this adaptation of the Robert Penn Warren novel. The novel is based on real life politician Huey B. Long's not-so-subtle transition from an honest do-gooder to scheming, fraudulent politician. This aspect is completely MIA in the script. In easy terms, one minute Willie is good, and we like him, and the next he is bad, and we hate him. But let's leave Willie for a moment, which is precisely what the movie does for an hour or so.
Jack Burke (Jude Law) is our narrator, an ex-newspaper man, who ambiguously chooses to become Willie's right hand man. Willie assigns him the job of digging up dirt on a man who wants Willie impeached, Judge Irwin (Anthony Hopkins), who just so happens to be Jack's father figure.
Along the way we also meet Jack's childhood friends, the manic-depressive Adam Stanton (Mark Ruffalo), and Adam's sister and Jack's former flame, Anne Stanton (Kate Winslet).
All of the supporting actors do a good job, minus a few accent slips from the Brits, but this soap opera-esque plot quickly loses its appeal. And, what's worse, this subplot becomes the actual plot. Remember Willie? This (long) part of the movie almost makes us forget.
Flash forward to the last few scenes. Willie is detestable, Jack ruins the only relationships he had and everyone else's life is in shambles. All this calculated and conniving scheming reaches a climax, which brings on a very predicable ending.
In short, the acting is good. Penn is perfectly cast for Willie Stark, and, given a better script, could have completely wowed us. Winslet finally shows us she can play an unlikable character — and she can do it well. Jude Law and Mark Ruffalo depict their characters exactly how they are supposed to be. However, all of this acting cannot make up for the errors in the script. So, all of the Sean Penn fans may want to skip this and instead dig out that old, weathered VHS of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."
2.5 out of 5
