Movie Review: All the Kings Men

By Anne Brodie Sep 20, 2006, 3:44 GMT

It’s fitting that in-your-face politico James Carville co-produces this remake of the 1949 political thriller based on Robert Penn Warren’s novel. 

It’s strident and unrelentingly DRAMATIC, with endless scenes of Sean Penn waving his arms and shouting about hicks. He plays aspiring Louisiana Governor Willie Stark eerily channeling Carville, based on another real life shouter Huey Long.

It’s a morality tale about the inevitability of power’s corruption. As the film, begins, Stark is an honest, idealistic small town politician who has the best interests of the hick community at heart. He doesn’t win the election but is repeatedly proven right on points close to the community’s heart, and eventually overcomes his rivals.

It doesn’t hurt that Starke’s delivery of hellfire and brimstone political sermons galvanizes the hicks and everyone else in earshot. He’s kicked upstairs from Mayor to Governor. And morally at least, its downhill from there.

He indulges in cronyism, bribery and threats, justifying them as ways of getting done what needs to be done for the good of the people. We believe him for awhile. Stark’s outrageous personality is mesmerizing, thanks to Penn, and he gradually seduces everyone in his eye line, including us.

His campaign manager (Patricia Clarkson), a former journalist (Jude Law) and a thug (James Gandolfini) joined him to fight the good fight, believing he would eventually overcome his methods and do some good.
As time goes by its clear he won’t.

Penn is radically energetic in the role; he has defined Willie Stark and stuck to it, braying polemic and all. The noise level is a tad high and the waving arms a bit like repeated slaps in the face.

It’s a treat to see former child actor Jackie Earle Haley as Sugar Boy, Stark’s driver and enforcer. Haley was the kid in ‘Breaking Away,’ the ‘Bad News Bears’ and a few other films. He has been producing industrials since 1993 but has returned in ‘All the King’s Men’ and in ‘Little Children,’ opening later this fall. He is an intense and gifted actor and it’s good to have him back. He packs a punch.

Spoiler: he’s Stark’s only true friend.

Patricia Clarkson is a treat, too, but she fails to reach the bravura heights of Mercedes McCambridge in the original film. McCambridge added layers of suggestion and nuance to her performance, but Clarkson plays it more from the script.

There’s a weighty ensemble of actors here – Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo, even musician Keb’ Mo’ providing sultry southern background.

But Keb’ Mo’ can’t fight the heavy handed score that announces every dramatic event and gesture in the movie - okay an exaggeration – but it’s extremely present and invasive.

The rich poetic southern style of speech is one of the film’s true delights. Stark enjoys frills and furbelows – ‘I trust it is so’, not ‘okay’. He’s quotable, didactic and entertaining while his hangers on and the rest of the cast, seem pale reflections of human beings.

Opens wide Sept. 22nd   MPAA Rating: PG-13 for an intense sequence of violence, sexual content and partial nudity.