This film is actually pretty dreadful on many levels. First the music is thuddingly melodramatic; it's like the producers saw the dailies and said "well...there's not much going on, but we'll fix it with the music". The pacing is often glacial, but most disastrously, the film is FATALLY MISCAST. Sean Penn is screeching and braying as Willie Stark, and during his long speeches about "the hicks" he gestures like John Belushi doing Joe Cocker. He simply is nothing, physically or temperamentally like Huey Long on whom the character is based. On the other hand, I bet Penn would have been great as the journalist Jack Burden, and certainly far superior to the miscast Jude Law who is unbelievable as an investigative journalist. Ironically James Gandolfini gives a good impression of what Willie Stark should be in the secondary role of Tiny Duffy. And Jackie Earle Haley is chilling and most effective with virtually no dialog as Sugarboy, Willie's gunsil. Almost every other actor, Hopkins, Winslet, Ruffalo is wasted in this totally unnecessary remake of a very good 40's film.
Review of All the King's Men
