Everyone's a critic: 'All the King's Men'

One star (out of four)

Reporter Jack Burden (Jude Law) follows the rise and fall of Louisiana politician Willie Stark (Sean Penn) in "All the King's Men." Stark soon loses his innocence and becomes just as corrupt as those who he fights to expose.

The novel by William Penn Warren is loosely based upon the career and assassination of former Louisiana Gov. Huey Long. While Steven Zaillien's theatrical version seemingly follows the path of the classic tale, it shifts the cinematic spotlight from Stark to Burden creating a romantic subplot. With an award winning cast (which includes Kate Winslet, James Gandolfini and Anthony Hopkins) one could have only imagined a brilliant execution of the 1949 original.

With the exception of Sugar Boy (played by Jackie Earle Haley, "Bad News Bears"), the film comes up short as Penn fails to recreate the powerful image of Willie Stark. As the fairy tale goes, "all the king's horses and all the king's men" failed to produce a great remake again.

-- Jerry Swan

---

Three stars (out of four)

The talent hired for "All the King's Men" are some of Hollywood's best. I liked the film for the people acting in it. Once I figured out who each character was and how they were connected (which took me about 30 minutes into the film) I began to enjoy the movie and was surprised by unexpected plot twists and an unexpected ending.

The film does have issues, such as a gumbo of faux bayou accents poorly mastered and an inability to connect or find character depth. The film's only saving grace was Sean Penn, who was downright electrifying as Willie Stark, a poor good ol' boy made good being used as a political pawn to split the poor man's vote for the office of governor in the state of Louisiana by a political thug named Tiny (James Gandolfini).

Penn gave me goosebumps, and his performance made all the other characters seem bland and small. There is no happy ending here nor even a moral point that I could see, but Penn's performance made the film worth viewing.

-- Carolyn Kempf