January 6, 2011: Stone
From the tense opening flashback scene through the desperate and deliberate changes in character of a prisoner to the indiscretions of a parole review officer, Stone flirts with being something greater than the sum of its parts. It almost makes it, but I don’t think it quite manages it in the end.
Nonetheless, watching Robert De Niro spar with Edward Norton makes it worth the price of admission, with both men working mostly inside their comfort zones but bringing enough zeal to their standard characters that a viewer who isn’t expecting a masterpiece can’t help but be entertained and impressed. In this classic match-up between a convicted felon and the authority figure who holds his freedom in the balance, “Stone” (Norton) at first seems to be trying to figure out what he needs to do in order to convince Jack (De Niro) to let him out of prison. After establishing his irreverence with a bunch of sex talk to try and dominate the conversation with the ultra-conservative and religious Jack, Stone begins to research religions, has his wife (Milla Jovovich) make inappropriate advances, and on occasion even comes close to telling the truth about his crimes. Jack, at the same time, is struggling with the conflicting values in the life he leads, and moves frighteningly closer to acting as the criminal we know he is inside, even as Stone starts to believe what he’s reading and appears to find inner peace. But both of these men are so close to that edge, the crossover between good and bad, that even they can’t figure out whether or not what they feel is real, much less have a clue about whether the claims of the other may be genuine.
So we have a fascinating battle, but it’s hampered a bit by the weak filmmaking around it. The church vs. sex imagery and scenarios are too obviously overwritten. De Niro’s (as Jack) caricatured mannerisms are sometimes distracting. Jack’s throwing caution to the wind with mere weeks to go before retirement strains credibility. Norton (as Stone) almost seems at times like he’s reprising his dual-mode character from Primal Fear (1996) rather than stretching himself. But on the other hand, I was impressed with how the film came around in the end. With 20 minutes to go, I feared a Hollywood-style ending with a bunch of people running around with guns and several of them getting shot. However, the actual ending is much more appropriate and true-to-life, with everyone going on with their broken lives, a wise acknowledgement that while big crises don’t usually end up with people dead, they quite often do leave a pile of lonely and devastated people who can’t simply rebuild their lives overnight, or perhaps ever. This is a great strength of Stone, and one which tips it into positive territory for me, though I wouldn’t strongly recommend the film.
Acting greats work with middling material.
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