Stone (2010)
A long look at a interesting but fairly simple scenario: a clever prisoner and his seductive (and even more clever) girlfriend on the outside play a mindgame on a prison release officer, to try to get an earlier release.
There are three actors who carry the whole load, and all three range from wonderful to stellar (I'll let you decide which is which). Robert De Niro is the prison official, about to retire, and he has no need to take a chance or bend the rules in the waning days of his career. But Edward Norton is no ordinary prisoner, and he plays with De Niro's head a little, mostly setting him up for an encounter with his complicit (we think) girlfriend. This woman is played by the extraordinary Milla Jovovich, who works on De Niro outside the prison walls.
If this were all it, and the movie was cut in half (literally, in half) it would be a fantastic film. But it drags out every aspect of these cunning and seductive interactions (in several senses of the word) to the point of just being tiresome. This is purely director John Curran's fault (assuming he has some sway over his editor, Alexandre de Franceschi, which he should--they have worked together often before).
Then there is a second level to the plot, and the theme introduced (almost inexplicably) in the first scenes. I won't spoil anything here except to say that this secondary plot is sensational, superficial, tacked on, then forgotten for an hour and a half, then tacked on again in a sensational and superficial ending. It's supposed to add an intense, personal, even psychologically probing aspect, but it is just cheap and dumb. Sorry to be blunt.
I'm blunt because it's a shame. The core of the film is actually brilliant, and brilliantly executed. See this movie forewarned, and yet with some appreciation for the best of it.
A long look at a interesting but fairly simple scenario: a clever prisoner and his seductive (and even more clever) girlfriend on the outside play a mindgame on a prison release officer, to try to get an earlier release.
There are three actors who carry the whole load, and all three range from wonderful to stellar (I'll let you decide which is which). Robert De Niro is the prison official, about to retire, and he has no need to take a chance or bend the rules in the waning days of his career. But Edward Norton is no ordinary prisoner, and he plays with De Niro's head a little, mostly setting him up for an encounter with his complicit (we think) girlfriend. This woman is played by the extraordinary Milla Jovovich, who works on De Niro outside the prison walls.
If this were all it, and the movie was cut in half (literally, in half) it would be a fantastic film. But it drags out every aspect of these cunning and seductive interactions (in several senses of the word) to the point of just being tiresome. This is purely director John Curran's fault (assuming he has some sway over his editor, Alexandre de Franceschi, which he should--they have worked together often before).
Then there is a second level to the plot, and the theme introduced (almost inexplicably) in the first scenes. I won't spoil anything here except to say that this secondary plot is sensational, superficial, tacked on, then forgotten for an hour and a half, then tacked on again in a sensational and superficial ending. It's supposed to add an intense, personal, even psychologically probing aspect, but it is just cheap and dumb. Sorry to be blunt.
I'm blunt because it's a shame. The core of the film is actually brilliant, and brilliantly executed. See this movie forewarned, and yet with some appreciation for the best of it.