hall895
Robert De Niro and Edward Norton have long since established that they are great actors. Unfortunately Stone is a movie which pretty much completely wastes their talents. The plot does not engage, moves too slowly and quickly becomes repetitive. This is a movie which gets stuck in a rut that not even the greatest of actors can pull it out of.De Niro plays Jack, a prison officer who is soon to retire who evaluates prisoners who are up for parole, recommending whether they should be released. Norton plays Stone, a prisoner who will test Jack, tempt him, make him question things about himself. Used as the object of temptation is Stone's wife, Lucetta, who is given a mission to seduce Jack so that he may look upon Stone's case more favorably. Jack's moments with Lucetta add a little something different to a movie which otherwise is just De Niro and Norton sitting on opposite sides of a desk jabbering away at one another. Lots of talk, very little action in this movie.Stone is the convict but Jack clearly has some serious inner demons. There is an anger boiling inside him. If he ever had any faith he seems to have lost it. Stone meanwhile finds some new spirituality. Or maybe that's just a ploy to make him seem a better candidate for release. Jack's wife is deeply religious. Stone's wife most certainly is not. Spirituality hangs over the whole picture. The film appears to be trying to tell us something important. But it never gets the message across. Ultimately it all fizzles out with an ending which is not much of an ending at all, this is a movie with no real resolution to it. It is a movie which never comes together properly. With De Niro and Norton on board, playing off one another throughout, there was great potential. But that potential is wasted. Great actors let down by a lousy script. De Niro seems a little bored at times. Can't blame him really. But by and large he and Norton, as well as Milla Jovovich who plays Lucetta, make the most they can out of the material. The performances are fine. But the material is just not good enough.
Liam Blackburn
Great film, should not be 5/10 on here. At first I was in doubt of the con's southern/ghetto accent but it ended up working well and he has good chemistry with Jack. There is expert pacing and the music is perfectly arranged. There is a constant edge-of-your-seat kind of feeling; like a tense vibration.There is all this background philosophical musing that I love in movies. This is what separates the great movies from the OK movies. This movie makes your brain go into a warm coalescing type frequency.She is an alien, as a matter of fact, you can tell that she is. The chemistry with her and Jack is good too. This is one of those movies that you just want it to keep going. The final scenes show all of Jack, his wife, Stone, Stone's wife all separated, looking into the ether. Stone is what humans are at first, after a long time they graduate to becoming human. Then as a human, they try and amend all their past mistakes until balance is reached. God is like a huge boxer holding his hand out on the tiny opponent's head as he flails away, this is Satan. Lots of good metaphors and a very indulging film.Best quote:You can't see forever
nedpredgrupa
...well, this movie was waste of my time and waste of Edward Nortons talent. Categorized as "drama" and "thriller"? I would add new category for it : "boring as can be". Nothing happening, full of religious nonsense, you just hope for it to end. It's almost never that I force myself to turn off the movie before it ends but I have barely endured this one. Total, but really total waste of time. I have no idea who makes a movie like this, or even worse - who enjoys it? Robert De Niro is making some bad movies lately, right? I mean, OK, you can act depressed and guy with inner conflict but come on. What has become of once such a great actor? The only reason I am giving it 2 stars is Edward Nortons performance...and yeah - Millas appearance :),I'm just weak for her :)
Rhys Pye
Stone is nothing more than a bog standard,run of the mill film which has been done time & time again really once you've seen one film like this you've seen them all. The only saving grace for this film is Robert De Niro who out-acts every other person in this film,his talents are truly wasted with this script. Along side De Niro is Edward Norton an actor that to me has always been a poor & very overrated actor but in Stone he is surely at his worst where he plays an predictable character which has been seen in films for years,he plays a prisoner who is so unconvincing its painful. I'm not sure if it is Norton's poor acting or the abysmal script that makes the character Stone just so unbearable. The directing is another low point of this film, the directer John Curran is trying to be smart & clever with his directing of Stone but ultimately ends up with a disjointed mess where at times some of the scenes are just totally out of place. Lastly the religious meaning to the film & the attempts to be profound are so terribly forced its unreal.I give this film 5/10 which is very kind as the film itself is only worth a 3 but I've given it an extra 2 stars simply for De Niro's performance which simply carries this terrible film
AD
