"All the King's Men" is a movie about the potential of men to be good and to do good things. Willie Stark contends that those two aren't mutually exclusive. "Men are conceived in sin, and born into corruption," Sean Penn drawls, and the film's most dramatic scenes arise from this stark view of the world. As governor of Louisiana, he exploits this culture of corruption by blackmailing his enemies (and his friends) into doing the good things he wants done (building schoolhouses, hospitals, roads, etc...) "All the King's Men" raises questions about the value of idealism in what is an established culture of corruption.
Set to a soundtrack of melancholy piano and filmed in grays and sepias, it has the look and the sound of a movie that wants to reveal the truth about human nature, but is sorrowful to do so. Jude Law's smug little grin usually bothers me, but in this film, I actually quite enjoyed his performance as secretly pensive Jack Burden. As for Sean Penn, Willie Stark is a hard role. It required him to speak in a ridiculous accent, wave his arms around in the air and have crazy hair. It was these three things that were perhaps the most distracting and most distasteful in the whole movie.
Set to a soundtrack of melancholy piano and filmed in grays and sepias, it has the look and the sound of a movie that wants to reveal the truth about human nature, but is sorrowful to do so. Jude Law's smug little grin usually bothers me, but in this film, I actually quite enjoyed his performance as secretly pensive Jack Burden. As for Sean Penn, Willie Stark is a hard role. It required him to speak in a ridiculous accent, wave his arms around in the air and have crazy hair. It was these three things that were perhaps the most distracting and most distasteful in the whole movie.
