Stone
Academy Award(R) winner Robert De Niro and Oscar(R) nominee Edward Norton deliver powerful performances as a seasoned corrections official and a scheming inmate whose lives become dangerously intertwined in Stone, a thought-provoking drama directed by John Curran (The Painted Veil, We Don't Live Here Anymore) and written by Angus McLachlan (Junebug). As parole officer Jack Mabry (De Niro) counts the days toward a quiet retirement, he is asked to review the case of Gerald "Stone" Creeson (Norton), in prison for covering up the murder of his grandparents with a fire. Now eligible for early release, Stone needs to convince Jack he has reformed, but his attempts to influence the older man's decision have profound and unexpected effects on them both. Stone skillfully weaves together the parallel journeys of two men grappling with dark impulses, as the line between lawman and lawbreaker becomes precariously thin. The film's superb ensemble features Milla Jovovich (The Fifth Element) as Lucetta, Stone's sexy, casually amoral wife, and Golden Globe(R) winner Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) as Madylyn, Jack's devout, long-suffering spouse. Set against the quiet desperation of an economically ravaged community and the stifling brutality of a maximum security prison, this tale of passion, betrayal and corruption examines the fractured lives of two volatile men breaking from their troubled pasts to face uncertain futures.
Reviews from Rotten Tomatoes
-
Moral ambiguity and ethical compromise are at the heart of this meandering prison drama, but at a certain point we simply don't care anymore who is base and baser.
Claudia Puig, USA Today, 10.07.2010 -
Genuinely odd in its mixture of bluntness and indirection, screenwriter Angus MacLachlan's study in biblical temptation is saved from its own heavy-handedness by a fine quartet of actors.
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, 10.06.2010 -
It presents us with four characters who are fascinating, specific and yet in some way unknowable, not like the usual characters in fiction but rather like people we might meet in life.
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, 10.14.2010 -
[It ends] up subverting expectations by denying pleasure.
Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 10.08.2010
