Homens em Fúria

How do we make sense of our lives and keep going despite all the bad things that happen to us? Most people find the answers to those questions in religion, and the characters in this film line up like a rainbow of answers: Jack (DeNiro), a prison bureaucrat, is agnostic; his wife Madylyn (Conroy) is a mainline Protestant; Stone (Norton) is a convict but also a seeker who finds his answers in a New Age religion; his wife (Jovovich) is an unabashed atheist. Throughout the film, evangelical radio frequently plays in the background, another stripe in the religious rainbow.

As a miserable young Madylyn hints to the viewers in the first scene of the film, the prison setting is a metaphor of the dungeon of the soul. For these four characters, loveless marriages, life work that seems futile, and memories of violence are their dungeon walls. Jack, Madylyn, and Stone all struggle with depression. Stone's is so deep that he edges toward suicide, but he searches for answers among the religious readings in the prison library and finds one that makes sense, especially after he witnesses a brutal stabbing at a range so close that the blood spatters his own face and he sees the murdered man eye to eye.

Jack seeks pastoral counseling after church one Sunday, admitting finally that the Episcopal framework of his life has never made sense. The minister quotes the Bible to him, "Be still and know that I am God," that is, listen for the answers that God provides. Oddly, that is exactly the prescription that Stone gets from his new religion too. It teaches that "God" or Truth speaks to us through everyday noises – insects buzzing, the voices of a prison exercise yard, talk radio, or a spoken mantra – if we just listen to the universe.

Stone does listen, and he begins to change. His new hairstyle, speech, and demeanor all signal to the viewer that he is a man reborn. The prison walls within Stone's mind fall away so that by the time his parole is finally granted, it hardly matters to him anymore.

Jack, meanwhile, hears nothing in the noise of his troubled life, nor can he makes sense of what Stone tries to share with him. As his retirement nears, he grows more and more reckless. Blind to the transformation that Stone has undergone, Jack suspects that he is being played. To the end, Jack remains suspicious and fearful of Stone who has come to terms with this past and feels only gratitude toward the aging jailer.

If you are looking for a conventional action flick with good guys and bad guys, this is not it. If you want an intelligent film about how desperate people search for faith and solace, you will not be disappointed.

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.

Filmmaking 101 has a rule; wait, Art 101 has a rule: Know your genre. A drama can have comic relief, but that works only in the framework of the genre that's been established. Comedies can have their dramatic, emotional moments, but if they then turn into dramas, audiences are confused and disappointed. If a screenwriter and director can't even tell their story competently within the confines of the genre they first set up, their movie will fail.

Yes, Stone is well acted. So what? Do you go to the movies to see good acting class exercises? If so, check this movie out. Norton and De Niro are entertaining, early on at least, and there's sharp dialog they have to work with (how else could they do their jobs? Don't you love people who praise the acting without acknowledging the script?)

But the story – the real reason most of us venture out to see a film – in Stoner is a mess. The movie starts off essentially as a thriller. The plot sets up a con working a con, with his sexy wife, on a prison case officer. But after putting the movie is thriller mode the movie then tries to be a drama about the meaning of life and presence of God. The movie tries to turn its main plot with the wife into a subplot, and then pretend that fun, salacious venture wasn't really what the movie wanted to deal with. No, let's talk about the meaning of life.

Stone, then, is a disappointment. Even as a drama it fails: the story dissipates into ambiguity with regard to the final action. POVs have jumped around all throughout the movie but in not showing us the final resolution between Stone and his wife, the whole fulcrum of the movie is left blank. As for the transformation of Stone – something Norton tries to act by occasionally calming his voice and widening his eyes – it's unbelievable, not fully formed or demonstrated and, like the rest of the movie, a pretentious attempt to take a fun dime-store novel's story and make it profound.

Don't waste your time or money with this one. If you have to see it, wait for video. The movie is shot in TV-like close-ups for the most part and it will play just as well there.

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.

"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.