Movie review - Stone (2010)

[Hondo]

I reckon this could have made it into both the good and the bad movie threads. Robert De Niro and Ed Norton star in a drama about four extremely disturbed people (in 2 marriage couples) on either side of the law, or so they think.

The movie starts with a young wife threatening to leave her withdrawn and disinterested husband. The husband then threatens one of the worst crimes thinkable and the wife backs down in terror. Flash forward 40 years and young husband is De Niro and he and his wife still together but in one of the most depressing, passive aggressive marriages ever depicted on screen. It is emotional abuse of the worst kind yet De Niro is now a parole officer who makes recommendations on which criminals are rehabilitated enough to return to society. He is still withdrawn and struggling with inner demons of some kind. He and his seemingly now alcoholic and chronically depressed wife spend their time listening to Christian talk back radio and reading the bible. The implication being that they are doing the right thing by god in persisting with their marriage. They barely speak to one another. Their hatred for one another buried under the religous vows they made when they married.

De Niro is close to retirement and his last case is a prisoner nicknamed "Stone" (Norton) who was an accessory to a heinous crime almost as bad as the one threatened by De Niro all those years ago. Norton engages his "easy", sexy wife (who he refers to as an "alien") to seduce De Niro to help Norton's case for early release.

De Niro lets himself get seduced for reasons that aren't spelled out leading to a series of cat and mouse verbal exchanges between Norton and De Niro as De Niro slips further and further into his own demons and Norton’s scheming. He knows he has been had but can do nothing about it as Norton is released.

Answers are ultimately not given to the questions posed. De Niro's wife gets spookier and spookier as the movie goes on and we are left not knowing how much she knows and what hand she had in the closing events. Those closing events are what let the movie down in my opinion. What looms as a psychological showdown between all 4 central characters fizzes out in a series of odd scenes that seem to want to say something about religion, belief, right and wrong. I wasn’t sure what to make of it all really.

De Niro and Norton are excellent as usual but because I wanted more out of the ending I only give it 6/10. I felt it was a wasted opportunity although I am sure the film-makers made the movie they wanted to make.

[JK]

Ive had this on the IQ planner for ages, but for some reason have held off on pulling the trigger with it .. Im not sure if that review helps me much either lol.

Hopefully get to it in the next week or so (now that Ive finished the 2nd season of Boardwalk Empire I should have the time)