The 'King' is dead

Far from bringing it to life, new version of Warren's Pulitzer winner feels like a museum piece

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 22, 2006 at midnight

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Few 2006 movies have generated as much expectation among serious moviegoers as All the King's Men, the newly minted adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's 1947 novel. But like the blustering politician at the center of its story, All the King's Men takes us down an unevenly paved road that leads to disappointment.

When I saw the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival, I couldn't tell why director Steven Zaillian had wanted to remake it - and I had even less idea why he chose this particular group of actors, all of whom seem to be working in different movies.

A few prime examples:

• As the irrepressible Willie Stark, a character modeled on real-life demagogue Huey Long, Sean Penn huffs and puffs but fails to blow the house down.

Willie rose from honest politician to ambitious governor with an eye on the presidency. He made a connection with common folk, a hick-to-hick mind meld that gave him the power that ultimately led to his corruption and threatened to tarnish everyone who went along for the ride.

Penn can't approximate the blunt force that Broderick Crawford brought to the Oscar-winning 1949 original, a portrayal that won him a best-actor Oscar. Penn lacks Crawford's girth and sense of physical menace. Crawford looked as if he could hoist an ox.

• As a supposedly wily political boss who eventually becomes Willie's stooge, James Gandolfini comes off like a cornpone Tony Soprano; Gandolfini's performance suggests that life after The Sopranos may not be so easy, even for Jersey's favorite mobster.

• And as the reporter who's initially wowed by Willie's honesty and then overwhelmed by his power, Jude Law comes off as hopelessly bland. Law's Jack Burden, a role originally played by John Ireland, flickers like a flame that's too easily blown out by Willie's bellowing wind.

On top of all this, composer James Horner has written a musical score that floods the ears with melodrama and faux importance. He blasts nobility over the proceedings, which have been photographed with a varnish fit for a coffee-table book.

The rest of an inexplicably British cast - Kate Winslet and Anthony Hopkins - doesn't fare so well, either. Nor does Mark Ruffalo as the idealistic physician who's betrayed by Willie. He and Winslet are the Stanton siblings, children of an admired former governor, representatives of Southern privilege.

Only Patricia Clarkson, as Willie's savvy political mole, seems right for her part. She's playing the role that won Mercedes McCambridge a best-supporting-actress Oscar in director Robert Rossen's far superior version.

Like Warren's novel, Rossen's movie was set during the Depression, which made it significantly easier to understand why Willie was able to raise the hopes of ordinary folks who felt as if they'd been kicked around long enough. But Zaillian, who wrote the screenplay, carries the proceedings into the 1950s, a decision that deprives the movie of much-needed social impact.

And when the film focuses on Law's character, the proceedings droop like the branches of a wet cypress. Jack moons over his unconsummated love affair with childhood sweetheart Anne Stanton (Winslet) and frets over Willie's most oppressive demand: He wants Jack to dig up dirt on the politically influential judge (Hopkins) who served as Jack's surrogate father.

Among the movie's producers, you'll find politico James Carville, who did better at managing campaigns than selecting movie material. Carville specializes in lively repartee, but the movie is the antithesis of lively, a kind of musty curio that feels void of contemporary relevance.

Rossen's movie feels a little dated these days, too, but it captured the swirl and grit of Louisiana politics, and Rossen knew how to photograph ordinary people in ways that made his movie feel as if it were taking place in the real world.

Given its source material, you'd have thought Zaillian would have done better. We Americans are especially well-attuned to rise-and-fall stories. Our culture is loaded with them. They make great cautionary tales.

Instead of bringing this story to bustling, brilliant life, Zaillian and company make it feel as if it belongs behind a glass case in some museum; Zaillian nails an all-American story to a wall of pretension, inflated melodrama and earnest posturing. It's a combination that cripples this ambitious movie right from the start.

Robert Denerstein is the film critic. Denersteinb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5424

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