Review: Stone

Stone

Starring Al Pacino, Edward Norton, and Milla Jovovich

Before I begin, I've summed up my review in large bold text at the bottom of this page. Go if you like for the cripplingly, yet entirely accurate summary of my review.

Stone is a crime thriller, starring Al Pacino who a distant, uncaring man, whose wife who cowers from his every move. Pacino is a prison correctional officer, about to retire, whose final case is to review Edward Norton file to determine whether he is eligible for parole.

Norton is in prison for arson, and is quickly losing his sanity. Beyond the walls of the prison, Norton uses his wife (Milla Jovovich) to seduce and manipulate Pacino in order to improve his chances of getting out of prison.

If that description seems disjointed and uninteresting, it's because I found this film to be exactly that. The first third of the movie really set the roles of these characters up to be really exciting.
Pacino is a father and husband who seems to be, at best, entirely displeased with his life and family.
Norton plays a criminal whose sanity begins to ebb away from the constant strain of prison.
Jovovich plays a loving wife who is prepared to do absolutely anything to free her husband from jail.

But then...the movie quit making sense. It certainly had some interesting concepts, everything to make this a good film was there, but instead of putting it all together, the film just geared down and left me totally baffled.

I have no idea what they were trying to get at this movie. Maybe it was something about not lying to yourself? I need to talk to the director or writer of this film, because I have absolutely no clue what the hell I just saw this weekend.

So, overall:

3/10

The Pros: Edward Norton's character was really enjoyable. He transforms from an accusatory criminal, to a depressed inmate, to an enlightened ex-con. It's an excellent role for him; And in a better movie, it would have been of noteworthy consideration come Oscar season.

The Cons: The story wasn't cohesive, any “subtle undertones” that were attempted were lost to Stone's incomprehensible plot, Pacino's role was nothing new, exciting, or exceptional, and I just didn't enjoy this movie.

This wasn't a “Crime Thriller” in any sense of the word. There was no “How is this going to end up? What's going to happen? What needs to be figured out?”

I'm not criticizing this movie for not fitting the 'formula' of a standard crime thriller, or for being above its viewers, I'm criticizing it because it wasn't good. It was lacking in pretty much every aspect.

Should you see Stone?

No.

No you should not see Stone.

If you skipped here, that's cool. If not, thanks for sitting through a largely negative review. I really needed to vent about how bad this movie was.