All the King's Men is extraordinarily dull. From start to finish you'll be hopelessly lost and checking your watch. If I didn't have to review this, I'd have walked out half-way through.

Don't let the marquee cast and Oscar-winning source material dupe you into expecting something watchable. I'll admit, even after debuting to critical panning at the Toronto International Film Festival, I was fooled to think this might be good.

All the King's Men is a remake of the 1946 film, but it is more faithful to Robert Penn Warren's novel of 1946. It tells the story of Louisiana governor Willie Stark's rise to power and the corruption that led to his downfall. Sounds simple enough, but throw in a bucket load of random flashbacks and repetitive scenes of mad Stark orations and this talking heads bore is guaranteed to bamboozle you into slumber.

Sean Penn gets top billing, but we sort of see the story from the eyes of Jude Law's Jack Burden. He's a journalist turned advisor lackey to Willie Stark who witnesses the campaign and collapse firsthand and is given the duty of recounting us the story. But even with his narration, the unconventional structure (that's a euphemism for senselessness) is unable to explain much. Jack Burden did love Anne Stanton, however, a rich debutante and childhood flame played by Kate Winslet, who seemed to grow bored of Burden's good-looking charm, favoring Willie's ugly mug and smarmy rants.

Both British actors struggle with the Southern drawl, with Law slipping in-and-out of accent and resembling his Alfie
wisecracker, and Winslet favoring bland line readings in futile hope she doesn't lose the twang. If the Harry Potter flicks can be so ruthless in casting only Brits for accent authenticity, why don't American Oscar-bait hopefuls do the same? The self-proclaimed Sir Great Stage Performer Anthony Hopkins doesn't even bother adopting a Southern intonation (one suspects the lazy thespian can't) for his part as Judge Irwin.

Where the rest of the cast is forgettable, Sean Penn is so gratingly loud and over-the-top, you'd mute him with the television remote if you were watching at home. This is especially true as he flails his arms and spits at those scenery-chewing rallies, where he comes across as unsympathetic monster.

The overbearing music and polished cinematography try to inject drama where it doesn't exist, making the monotony all the more apparent.

I didn't hate every second of All the King's Men. The film is book-ended by two cool bird's eye shots of the Louisiana State crest, the former a slow, twisting zoom with rousing political score and the latter's embossed edges filling with oozing blood. Combined, these symbolic images last about 2-3 minutes. I did, however, hate every other second.

Rating: Half Star out of five

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