Stone (2010)

Deniro and Norton, back together again. Stone's first two acts are great. You're intrigued, it's unpredictable, and interesting. But the third act leaves you confused and almost unaffected by the story at the end. Stone (norton) is up for parole and wants to get out. Why not throw his sex-crazed wife (jocovich) in front of Jack's (Deniro) feet. But one of these three is starting to see life under a new life. How will this play out? Norton was great but nothing spectacular. Will remind you of his primal fear days. But what makes his performance so good is how he makes his character so likable considering the ridiculous offensive lines that come out of his mouth.

I don't think they went far enough with Deniro's character. It wasn't written well enough. It starts off with a flashback on his broken relationship with his wife and what extremes he goes to keep her. But this ins't really paid off well in the film.

Interesting film. Not predictable. Good performances. Less than mediocre writing.

My verdict B/C

Fmovies: "Stone" is a messed up film. I would like to say that I don't know what the story was about, but that's not really true as it was a very simplistic plot. Edward Norton is a convicted criminal up for parole, overseen by parole officer Robert De Niro. It's not so much that the story is hard to understand, more so that nothing actually happens.

It's dialogue-heavy as Norton philosophizes his way to freedom, and it's supposed to be character-rich as we watch De Niro try to remain sane as both Norton and his wife Milla Jovovich work their angles on him. But these are just messed up characters that I knew less about at the end than I did at the beginning. The film has clear problems when the only somewhat likable character is the guiltless criminal Norton. But I would say it's bigger problems are with the fact that it's supposed to be a thriller, but all you have is De Niro and Norton jabbering back and forth until nothing is clear and very little of consequence or action occurs. There is even a religious undertone to the whole film, but I have no idea what they were trying to say with that.

I'm sure De Niro and Norton deliver great performances as they always do, but when their characters are poorly written and make no sense, you can't watch a film for the acting. The director was overly concerned with detail, framing every scene and adding nuance to each shot, which is great in some films, but in "Stone", it would have served him better to just try and tell a story from beginning to end.

A prison psychologist (Robert DeNiro) has the final interview of his career, with a man called Stone (Edward Norton). Things get more complicated when Stone starts finding religion and Stone's wife (Milla Jovovich) uses her charms to influence the psychologist.

Other reviews have called this film "pretentious" and I am going to follow their lead. I feel like the story was going to go somewhere and just did not go there, or the writer had a message to share with us, but it was either missed or not as big as I expected. So, maybe pretentious is a harsh word, but until shown otherwise, I am going to go with it.

My other big problem with the film is that it is clearly called a "thriller" by pretty much everybody, and I do not know how that was placed on it. There are no thrills to this film. Suspense maybe, tension maybe... but no real thrills. It is a pretty tame film, more a drama than anything.

I feel that the film tries to explore spirituality and fails. There is a background of church radio, Stone's search for understanding, and some Bible passages... but I was waiting for it to come together and it really just did not ever do it. There was no firm Christian or anti-Christian message. There was some talk of morality, but it was very jaded.

DeNiro gives a great performance, Norton's is not top-notch (I never really believed he was what he appeared to be). Milla is tough to pinpoint. Some have called her performance "raw", but I think that is just a polite way of saying she gets naked. She plays her character well, but it is a shame to see her so dumb-down when she can play such strong, independent women.

I think this film meant well, and they gave it a good shot, but it just fell short in a bunch of places. The performances were not what I wanted to see, the story has enough holes that I do not feel it is complete or tells a story that goes somewhere. In the end, I felt empty inside. Whatever I was supposed to get out of this, I did not get.

Stone fmovies. Going to the theater, my expectations of "Stone" were rather typical of any thriller produced nowadays. Reading the (somewhat misleading) synopsis and looking through the cast, I couldn't set my hopes up to anything far beyond "ordinary thriller with a decent cast that probably won't outdo a potentially blunt story".

Keep in mind: this is NOT a thriller, at least in the conventional sense of the word. It's a heavy drama with extremely minimal undertones of suspense.

The basis of the story is quite simple (read the synopsis), but the majority of the film's focus is in its character study. This is where the actors seriously shine. That seems to be the issue with most of the negative responses the film received. Yes, it is slow paced. Yes, there's a lot of religious jargon thrown around. Yes, it is quite the anti-climactic film. But isn't that the point? De Niro, who I haven't seen in anything memorable after Jackie Brown (okay, I'll exclude The Good Shepherd), is marvelous as the underplayed Jack Mabrey. The subtle nuances he gives to a character so burned out of work, marriage -sidenote: Frances Conroy was amazing-, and life in general (the speech he gives at his brother's funeral in the beginning comes to mind) are nothing short of astonishing. I can't stress on how great the performance was, De Niro has definitely gone back on track.

Edward Norton is equally terrific. I could go on and on about his perfect use of mannerisms, facial gestures, and especially the accent to formulate an interesting character. What I found interesting, and fortunately detracted any notions of the film being one-sided religious crap, was the contrast between Jack and Stone's religious beliefs/endeavors; Mabrey, for instance, sitting in the porch with his disturbingly delusional wife, discussing religion and the existence of God, while shunning its very purpose during situations of danger and conflict (the seduction, and another scene towards the end which I won't spoil). Stone, on the other hand, a misguided delinquent with strange views of death, forms an epiphany on the purpose of his existence at a more realistic - another good word is unconstitutional - level during his stay in prison, confusing the hell out of everyone due to his inability of expressing it on a more intellectual basis. This probably makes one very lucky case of ignorance being bliss.

The biggest surprise, however, was Milla Jovovich. I honestly did not see that coming from her at all. Her previous attempt in handling a serious role in ".45" only came off as an attempt, with clunky overacting that I guess can be forgiven due to the frigging horrible writing and direction of that film. But she does extremely well here as Stone's wife, the sexy seductress with a personally agonizing struggle of commitment. With her loyalty to Stone becoming blurred through the sexual encounters with other men and her general flirtatious attitude, it was mesmerizing to see Jovovich pull it off so well. She was simply dynamic in this film.

As the credits started rolling, I could hear many people in the theater ranting about how their time has been wasted. Lots of "what the hell?" came up, too. I'll admit that it came off as a surprise to how it just abruptly ended, but I eventually managed to appreciate the artistic integrity of the film. One reviewer here commented: "Stone is well acted. So what? Do you go to the movies to see good acting class exercises?"

This film is about a parole officer who is about to retire. He works on whether an arsonist should be released or not, which leads to undesired consequences.

"Stone" sounds like a crime thriller on paper, but it just what it is not. It is so slow moving, that the first seduction by Milla Jovovich happens forty minutes into the film. Just when the seduction subplot starts to pick up, suddenly the film becomes religious. Then suddenly the wife has gone crazy. The plot is all over the place, lacking in focus and clarity. It cannot decide whether it wants to be a thriller or drama. As a result, "Stone" is so boring, literally making my eyelids as heavy as stones.

When reading the ratings and reviews of this film I believe that some viewers went in expecting something different. I can fully understand that it wasn't for everyone. The film surprised me as to how non typical it was in its plotting but it was the best character study in a long time.

Jack(Deniro) is about to retire but requests that he can finish his final convicts paroles. Stone(Norton) is one of those convicts. Stone starts as a character who wants out of prison but not for the reasons a parole officer would want. The plot is seemingly straight forward in its setup. Mila Jovavich gives a wonderful performance, most notably because the audience is never really clear on which direction she is taking in her motivation. Its not a trait to make her more of a suspenseful character, its to show how one dimensional her relationship really is with Stone.

The essential plot setup is Jovavich and Stone decide on a plan to seduce Jack so that the parole is a must. The problem is that once this starts, Stone begins to experience change. As does Jack. I will not go into it much more. The film relies on the characters emotions rather than intense cat and mouse games. The film sets the audience to follow the "good guy" (Deniro) but it challenges the audience later to decide really who to trust.

The most interesting aspect is that Jack is content when listening to Stone's problems but when Stone begins to change, Jack is not alright with it. The years of holding back his darkness cannot stay contained when he is not judging others.

The film is definitely one to be analyzed. This could be why the reception is severely mixed. It had a profound effect on emotion. No specific type except dread and in some cases, familiar motives.

The film cannot be reviewed without a depth of character discussion, so in this case check the film out. Just do not expect typical suspense thrillers Hollywood has given. Ignore the rating until you view it yourself. And if nothing seems to get your interest, just expect great performances for Deniro, Jovavich, and Norton.