Flak Magazine: Review of All the King's Men, 10-26-06

All the King's Men stands in the shadow of both the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel on which it is based, and the Oscar-winning adaptation of 60 years past. That's a lot of pressure, and, sure enough, the new version collapses entirely. What is ultimately frustrating about this film is the wasted aesthetic, narrative and political potential. Part of what makes Robert Penn Warren's story so necessary is its timelessness. Willie Starks are everywhere — we're not out of the cycle of electing pseudo-populist nincompoops quite yet, and there's more than a little anxiety involved in seeing a rural prole with a chip on his shoulder making waves, gaining power and acting tough as he swaggers and rips up lawbooks. So why doesn't this All the King's Men deliver? Watch how a series of casting disasters totally destablizes the movie:

Sean Penn has never been one to flinch at a difficult role, and his performance as Willie Stark is suitable enough, but ends up lacking. He seems to have decided to use flailing hands and twitchy, spastic body language to exemplify Willie's inner conflict and omnivorous appetites. Penn's Willie is wild like a Muppet — never far from a nervous breakdown, alternatingly fidgeting and uneasy. It's a risky, even effective choice, but it misses the mark. Part of Willie's character makeup is that he is a force of nature, as devastating and seductive as a tornado or a flood. He's not calculating so much as cagey — in the arc of the novel, he morphs from puppy to pit bull. Broderick Crawford won an Oscar in the original for exhibiting both tendencies. Penn, for all his acting prowess and political passion, misses the primal, pot-bellied immediacy of Willie Stark in the way that, say, John Goodman would have made it his business to master.

Another good choice for Willie would have been James Gandolfini, well-known for detail and electricity in his own right, but that actor managed to be miscast in a different role instead. On one level, Gandolfini as the seedy Tiny Duffy makes good sense: Duffy is a natural operative and cynical sleaze, and the man behind Tony Soprano should easily have made his own. The problem is, as with a lot of Gandolfini's other non-HBO roles, is that having brillaintly nailed the multifaceted Tony Soprano for several years and hundreds of situations, the Jersey mobster's nervous system seems to have melded with his own. Gandolfini winces, grimaces, and implodes as Duffy, and loses the whole vibe.

In the novel, Sadie Burke is one of the more potent characters — a ravenous, intense, pointy political operator that's a sort of unholy alliance of Karl Rove and Orianna Fallaci. As Sadie, Patricia Clarkson can't quite seem to break out of the guise of a maternal, genteel Southern belle. The fierceness is gone, and so is much of the point.

Kate Winslet has been excellent in other things, dating back to her breakthrough in Heavenly Creatures, but she is made of cardboard here as Anne Stanton. Ann is meant to be a smart, sweet and sexy all-American girl next door, and Kate doesn't deliver that.ÊShe looks one-dimentional and cold in her crucial scene, one that is supposed to be so sorrowfully anti-climactic that it haunts Jude Law's character for the rest of his life. The viewer doesn't register the tragedy, and much of the romantic power is lost.

Speaking of Law, his Jack Burden is All the King's Men's biggest airball, again showing a talented actor not doing much with a seasoned and already well-built character. Jack is the brooding, haunted narrative voice of Willie's rise and fall. A cynical, world-weary journalist nursing romantic regret and historical remorse would have suited Mark Ruffalo — or, to bring things full circle, Sean Penn — just fine: cigarette dangling, muddy trenchcoat, rueful mumble. Law doesn't really manifest any of this Bogart-of-the-bayou attitude and thus the moral and ironic center of the story is lost. A lot hinges on his performace, and he mostly just kind of sits there. Jack assists the narrative because he mediates between Willie's charisma and his ambition — two things the reporter knows intimately — and thus gives the reader or viewer a means to appraise and judge Willie as we must, if the parable is not to be lost.

No doubt the moral fiber of Warren's Pulitzer-winning slice of American mythology appealed to Zaillian and executive producer James Carville. What they aimed at, most likely, was to use this perennial warning against table-pounding populism to sound alarm bells across the theatres of America. The problem is, for both the filmmakers and the audience, is that an urgent warning brought back from the past is revisited as melodrama, chockablock with unconvincing performances. All the King's Men oozes with sultry corruption and vengeful power, but arrives flat and overblown. That this tale has much to do with today's pecuniary politics only heightens the frustration. As Warren himself once noted, "History is not melodrama, even though it usually reads like that."

— Matt Hanson (junglegroove@gmail.com)