ALL THE KING’S MEN
Director: Steven Zaillian Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Sean Penn, Kate Winslett, Patricia Clarkson, Mark Ruffalo, Jackie Earle Haley
Reviewed by PETER MALONE
There seems to be something missing from this film. The early part moves very quickly, too quickly, to establish Willie Stark as the Governor of Louisiana. Too much seems to happen off-screen that one wonders whether material was filmed and is now on the cutting room floor – or in waiting for the DVD of the Director’s Cut. The other strange aspect is that the film, which seems to be centred on Willie Stark and his administering of the state, often leaves him behind for some time and focuses on his aide, Jack Burden. And in the Jack Burdern interludes, there are a number of flashbacks. This has the potential to confuse but further interrupts the flow of the plot. One wonders whether it might not have been better – and more dramatically cogent – to have a more linear film which would be more intelligible, audience friendly and more powerful in its development.
The potential is there. The previous version of Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, based on the life and career of Huey Long, governor of Louisiana in the 1930s, won the Oscar for Best Film of 1949 and acting awards for Broderick Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge. Its writer director, Robert Rossen won a Golden Globe.
It is not as if the present writer director is not a good creator. Witness his adaptation of Schindler’s List. Zaillian also directed Searching For Bobby Fischer and A Civil Action.
The ingredients are certainly there but do not draw the audience in as would be expected. Sean Penn is sometimes very powerful as the upstart Stark, although his crowd-rousing speeches have a lot of flailing arm desperation. Jude Law is more of a background person as Burden, which makes his adherence to Stark’s cause and his attempts to dig up dirt on his judge godfather (Anthony Hopkins) the more surprising and alarming. His voiceover is meant to offer something of a conscience report on what is going on even if he does not practice what he declares. To that extent, his performance is effective, keeping the more extraverted histrionics for Penn.
Also in the cast are Kate Winslett (though her relationship with Stark is underdeveloped), Patricia Clarkson (whose presence in Stark’s life is not really developed either) and Mark Ruffalo as a doctor who brings the rise and rise of Stark to a climax. There is an eerie portrayal by Jackie Earle Haley of a silent chauffeur-gunman.
The film is not uninteresting, especially in its reflection on American politics and the South, but one wonders what it might have been.