There are a slew of decent actors in the world, but there are only a handful that are so good it's not fair. Sean Penn is one of them, in spite of his overdone performance as Governor Willie Stark in the recently released ""All the King's Men,"" a long and boring political drama.
While his rare ability to go completely nuts in front of the camera has worked wonders in the past (think ""Mystic River"" and ""21 Grams""), it might be nice to see Mr. Penn play someone other than that man of importance, the one who has something to prove with flailing arms and flying spit.
It's not hard to tell that his career is getting stale, or at least completely lacking in versatility. He is a man of his dramas—and none can deny him that—but would it kill him to pull a Greg Kinnear every once in a while? Maybe loosen that starched, blue shirt collar of his and play a real man: Someone who wakes up in the morning and brushes his teeth in his boxer shorts, an angry wife in one ear and the sound of broken plumbing in the other.
Ultimately, ""All the King's Men"" is a movie that should be important. It keys right into a lot of issues that are hurting our country right now, but all of that gets washed away due to Penn's outrageous performance. The accent, the scruffy hair, the suits, the ties with their clips: Everything is just too much. Add that to James Horner's extensive, somber score pressed to the back of every last miserable moment of drama, and you get a movie that's too heavy and entirely dispensable.
The film takes place in 1930s Louisiana. Stark begins as a common Southern Baptist and sober husband of a school teacher. After he is tricked into running for governor by men of the opposing party, Stark gets drunk and decides to run anyway. He runs alone, traveling through the state and giving loud, provocative speeches about the common man helping the common man, and he wins.
Jude Law gives the only half-satisfying performance in the movie as journalist Jack Burden, a southern aristocrat who gets hired by Stark after quitting his job at the newspaper. Attempts to create a pressing love story between him and childhood friend Anne Stanton (Kate Winslet) fail: Their love is unmotivated and childlike. Jack's jealousy late in the script seems contrived, and Winslet's character is wasted in a sea of silly plot devices about lies and deception.
The movie soldiers onA-—sometimes entertaining, often excruciating—and at two hours, it feels about an hour too long. While there are a few clever character touches (Stark likes to drink his orange pop with two straws), it is apparent that they exist only because this is a script adapted from a Robert Penn Warren novel. Everything else is just extraneous. It's like a big furry animal that with proper writing, directing and acting could have easily been shaved down to size.
