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All the King's Men Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for an intense sequence of violence, sexual content and partial nudity) Genre: Drama, Political Theater release: September 22, 2006 by Sony Pictures Directed by: Steven Zaillian Runtime: 2 hours Cast: Sean Penn (Willie Stark), Jude Law (Jack Burden), Kate Winslet (Anne Stanton), Mark Ruffalo (Adam Stanton), Anthony Hopkins (Judge Irwin), Patricia Clarkson (Sadie Burke), James Gandolfini (Tiny Duffy), Kathy Baker (Mrs. Burden) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Watching All the King's Men, it is hard to believe that writer-director Steven Zaillian is an Oscar-winning screenwriter (for Schindler's List). For that matter, it is hard to believe that this film was made by the same guy who previously directed Searching for Bobby Fischer and A Civil Action, two very fine films about, respectively, a young chess prodigy and a personal injury lawyer whose greed is thwarted by pride, obsessiveness and, ultimately, a sort of moral self-reflection.

Those films had a clarity of vision and a clarity of exposition that made them truly engaging, even—if not especially—when characters and situations turned out to be more complicated than we thought. But All the King's Men is just murky and muddled throughout. This film was originally going to come out one year ago, but it was held back because those who saw it found it confusing and hard to follow. Zaillian spent months re-editing the film, but apparently to no avail; all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put this movie back together again.

Sean Penn as Willie Stark, a Louisiana politician

The film does have a talented cast, and it's not hard to see why so many worthy actors were willing to hop on this particular bandwagon. The film is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, which in 1949 became a film that won Oscars for Best Picture, Actor, and Supporting Actress; and there was every reason to believe that a new version might get some of that attention, too. But most of them never get a chance to make much of an impression, in the end.

There are exceptions to this. Sean Penn, who has often been criticized for going over the top or taking himself too seriously, is almost ideally suited for the part of Willie Stark, a Louisiana politician who wins the heart of "hick" voters by railing against the establishment in big, loud speeches and making lofty promises to clean things up once he becomes state governor. At first, he seems like a relatively innocent idealist—his wife's a schoolteacher, he drinks nothing stronger than orange soda pop—but once he takes office, he turns out to be just as corrupt as the people he replaced.

The problem is, his transformation happens much, much too quickly. I was reminded of how one of the main criticisms of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is that the Jack Nicholson character became so crazy, so soon, that there was nowhere left for him to go for the rest of the movie; in All the King's Men, Stark's transformation from decent bumpkin to cynical sleazebag seems to happen even more quickly, and any drama that might have been milked from his fall from grace is pretty much lost.

Jude Law as reporter Jack Burden

Then again, on one level, the story isn't really about Stark. The Louisiana governor's rise to power is witnessed through the eyes of Jack Burden (Jude Law), a reporter who comes from a more affluent background than Stark; he takes a shine to the "hick" politician, so much so that he quits his job at the newspaper when the editors complain that his pro-Stark columns are at odds with the paper's endorsement of one of the other candidates. Given how corrupt Stark becomes so soon in the story, it is difficult to see what Burden sees in the man; but he lets himself be used, as Stark gets him to work his contacts with the upper class for political gain.

Stark also tells Burden to dig deep into the background of Judge Irwin (Anthony Hopkins), a political opponent who also happens to be the closest thing Burden ever had to a father. Stark wants something that he can smear the judge with, and he insists, despite Burden's protests, that every man, no matter how seemingly innocent, has something to hide—something that can be brought into the light.

This taps into one of the film's key themes, which is that everyone is tainted by sin—and you don't have to be a Christian to impose that reading on the film, since the movie takes place decades ago in the Bible Belt, in a time and place when characters like Stark could easily connect with the masses by peppering their speech with explicitly religious language. Crucifixes are a recurring visual motif, and the house of one character with a secret to hide is filled with Catholic icons and lit candles.

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