Stone

Stone is a film you walk into with very high expectations. For one thing, it stars Robert De Niro in a serious role: which is hard to find these days. For another, it stars the best younger actor around: Edward Norton, who also starred in the same director (John Curran)'s previous film (which was great). And yet Stone does not manage to be a great film. It's definitely a bit of a disappointment, but not wholly. For, Stone is so complex a film that I wonder if I just missed something or if it wasn't the right day or time to see the film. Here's the plot: Robert De Niro plays a parole officer about to retire. He decides to stay and see out all of his current cases. He's a man inner demons, and we see some of them come out in the prologue. He's moving through life without any, until he meets Stone, an inmate. Stone is extremely intelligent (played by Norton) and starts to mess with De Niro's life. He has his scintillating and never-better girlfriend played by Milla Jovovich call and meddle with De Niro. This is all done well, and as De Niro and Jovovich begin a relationship, there's a heavy overtone of religion and god--righteousness. The director, John Curran, was masterful at taking clichés and exhibiting them (and stereotypes) as truth in The Painted Veil, it's not done as well in Stone, but there's a sense of it. This is a complicated crime picture, one that is a step above most others. It deserves recognition and perhaps there's something I missed with the religion scenes, but the film was just not fully coherent. There's a few silly mistakes here and there and not enough interaction between De Niro and Norton. Potential not met.
Stone: ✰✰1/2