What is "Stone" about? It's about manipulation? Is it about deceiving?Is it about blackmailing? Is it about a guy who wants to get out fromprison or it's about the bad things done in order to do good things?Obviously, John Curran, did not find out the best way possible todeliver the right answer nor he managed to balance the movie properly.We completely forget about the purpose because the movie drags too mucharound some characters that don't have a good chemistry nor a powerfulor intelligent story to be connected with each other. The storytellinggets pretty messy at points, a lot of awkward moments and uselesspieces of dialogue but most of all the "path" or pattern could be seenby the beginning. This movie lacks in consistency, balance andcharacter development. It becomes dull and nothing really keeps youinterested, sometimes you wish you could have seen it home so you couldhave the possibility of skipping a few minutes here and there.

The casting was not that great even if all main actors are known fortheir career or potential. De Niro, specifically was not meant for thisrole or this movie perhaps. His role was not that boring but notinteresting and his character portrayal was to me a simple routine forhim. No soul into it, no hard work just... acting routine. MillaJovovich on the other hand was a perfect choice because she really fitsthe role of a gorgeous, easy and weird woman. She delivers that strangesexual behavior very good so choosing her for this role was a goodoption. Edward Norton, who we all know mainly from Fight Club andAmerican History X, impersonated the desperate but meticulous convictpretty well. He added nothing outrageous to his character but he didn'thad the courage or inspiration to make it appear more convincing.

Technically, another disappointment. The cinematography was not thatgood, the lens were too grey on moments and I really felt I was gonnafall asleep especially because of the editing. So many useless shots,so many silence moments, so many points where I was like sitting in mychair, looking in my left and my right, looking back to the screen andtried to remember what movie is that I'm watching right now. I feltreally disappointed.

Overall, this movie lacks in about everything that is needed for a goodmovie to be made. It's not a great time at cinema and I honestly don'trecommend it unless you're a fan of dull movies. I guess for a rentalit could be good but otherwise I cannot support this movie in any way.I am still counting the days till a good De Niro movie...

From the beginning, something's not quite right. "Stone," a drama thatrevolves around a Michigan parole officer and a convict seekingfreedom, is played against a background of soothing voices preachingGospel truths, asking questions about man and God, and offeringalternatives to established beliefs and religions. Over the airwavesand in the media, a contest for minds and hearts and recruitment isbeing waged. Even in the maximum-security prison where parole officerJack Mabry (Robert De Niro) works, the inmates' library has a shelflined with brochures and leaflets from religious groups, like asupermarket shelf for souls shopping for redemption.

One of those souls is "Stone" Creeson (Edward Norton), serving theeighth year of his 15-year sentence, and now seeking a parole. He wasconvicted of complicity in the murder of his grandparents as well asthe arson of the couple's home.

For his unfocused and sadly erratic screenplay, writer Angus MacLachlanuses a few religious themes that are well loved by preachers, gurus andpriests. One theme is the role people play in each other's lives.Another is the Psalms' answer to anyone questioning divine wisdom: "Bestill, and know that I am God." And then there's the basic tenet of anobscure cult that Stone finds appealing, prescribing different soundsthat reverberate in the soul and result in spiritual transformation.

Those are big themes that MacLachlan touches on but fails to followthrough. He uses them more for the weight they give the story, muchlike decorations, and they recall Woody Allen's love for philosophicalmusings. But while Allen weaves them brilliantly into his comedies anddramas, MacLachlan leaves it to the audience to connect the dots andleaves it at that.

The plot is exciting enough, going back decades ago, when Jack's wifeMadylyn (Frances Conroy) announces that she was leaving him for makingher redundant in his life. He then scurries upstairs where their babydaughter is asleep, picks her up and threatens to throw her out of thewindow. Madylyn opts to stay and the couple spends a lifetime ofcompromise in another loveless marriage in middle-class America.

Now on the verge of retirement, Jack faces the man who will change hislife, a cornrowed, tattooed and self-avowed reformed man, Stone. Theirinitial meeting and the several more meetings after that are good butill-at-ease character studies of a tired old man who has nothing muchmore left to do in life, and a young man who wants to reclaim it.

Enter Stone's wife Lucetta (Milla Jovovich), whom he describes as beingout of this world, in fact an "alien." She does look out of place insuburban Detroit, being bubbly, pert and conveying a cosmopolitan airdespite her plain wardrobe. She is in many ways like an immigrant notfrom a developing country but from some sophisticated place like NewYork City.

It's easy to miss the part of the movie where Stone suggests to herthat she could help him win a parole by cozying up to Jack because fromthe start, she declares that she will do a- ny-thing for that tohappen. She lays out the traps, and Jack bites. Some will find theirsex scenes steamy, but others may not, for the simple reason that DeNiro and Jovovich as actors and as characters are mismatched. And themovie's suggestion that Lucetta is nursing some amorous feeling towardJack is a lame attempt to add mystery to a wanton barter deal.

However, MacLachlan's and director John Curran's ploy to confuse us onwhether Stone and Lucetta had been in full complicity in the seductionand humiliation of Jack nearly works. While Jake and Lucetta are busywith their bedroom massages and erogenous zone explorations, Stonestarts to fall apart and turns suicidal. In a visit to the correctionalinstitution's infirmary, he witnesses the brutal slaying of a prisonguard by some convicts. The experience could have further damaged hispsyche, but it's a different Stone that we see not long after, sane,jubilant and self-satisfied with the success of a conspiracy that hemay or may not have orchestrated.

Inconsistency and shallow treatment are apparent in the othercharacters. An impulsive and nearly irrational man in the fine openingscene, Jack, carefully sketched by De Niro, is mostly in control of hisemotions, even when he frees himself from sexual repression. His wifeMadylyn, played with deep bitterness and brooding by Conroy, once hadideas of liberation but she instead became a slave of respectability.The role of bed-hopping Lucetta is more consistent, but Jovovich couldnot find the right stops –- and direction –- to be more than just aone-note seductress.

The redeeming points of the movie are its well-constructed ending andanother, more successful attempt to give it a deeper layer. In one ofthe interviews at the parole officer's office, Stone raises veryrelevant questions to Jack. When is punishment enough? When does itcross over to injustice? And do corrupt and corruptible people have theright to judge criminals? Like those Gospel truths riding the airwaves,they sound great but this movie's creators needed to weigh them, putthem up front in the drama and then tell the audience: sit still, wehave a great movie for you. But all that is wishful thinking now.

Staring the highly promising cast of Robert De Niro and Edward Norton,Stone is the story of a prison inmate and the relationship betweenhimself, his wife and the parole board officer in charge of hisrelease.

Norton is as thorough as to be expected and provides a convincingperformance as the incarcerated man. De Niro is solid and dependable inhis portrayal of the complex correctional officer. These twoestablished actors are the films saving grace. The script is mediocre,the film itself drags and leave you with that familiar taste in yourmouth, It's not sweet, it's not savory, its not even umami, it's one of"well that was a waste of time".

Basically it's very disappointing and to quote Shakespeare "much adoabout nothing".

2/10

Stone has a very intriguing first act--carefully setting up itscharacters and situations--leading into a very interesting developmentin its second act--only to completely blow its momentum by shiftingfocus completely away from Stone in its third act. (why would a moviecalled Stone not be about the character who's named Stone???)

Ed Norton as the cornrows wearing ex-con seeking spiritualenlightenment is actually pretty believable once you get past the factthat its Ed Norton (which i didn't have any trouble doing past thefirst scene--i thought he was fine.) Robert De Niro seems to besleepwalking yet again at first, but in this case its his characterwho's sleepwalking as that seems to be his default setting in life. Hisperformance isn't bad either--and the early scenes of the 2 men playingoff each other hold a lot of promise...even if De Niro's character ismore or less the kind of character he used to play a lot more often

(it actually reminded me of Robert Duvall's character in Get Low--DeNiro's character is a hermit here too, defined primarily by the guilthe may or may not feel over an act of seeming violence he may havecommitted as a young man--which is incidentally the opening scene ofthis film--again mirroring the opening scene of Get Low which alsofeatures an act of cowardice that comes to define Duvall's life ofsolitude--- De Niro's character doesn't really communicate with manypeople--even the wife he lives with--and the movie's content and pacingisn't unlike Get Low either as its essentially about the re-awakeningof an old hermit to his life--although this is certainly a much morepessimistic movie overall...much more so.) So the first act is mostlyDe Niro trying to figure Stone out--and Stone tries to assess what DeNiro's weakness might be...and how he can try and exploit it. Thesescenes are solid..and leave you wanting more--and soon we get theintroduction of Norton's wife who seems like she'll do anything to helpher husband get out....and its here where the film's first problem popsup---how exactly does Mila Jovovitch manage to coax De Niro out of hisshell again?!?!?!? we see scenes of her frantically trying to get hisattention and him actively resisting--but then before you know it--he'sengaging with her--and maybe i missed how she got to him--but i didn'tquite understand what or how De Niro finally got coaxed out of hisshell...or what it is that sends him fleeing right back into it morethen halfway through. Meanwhile the film has had a recurring shots ofDe Niro listening to this religious radio station on his car on the wayto and from work--and we hear the DJ talking about sin, and salvation,and what a person can do to try and salvage his prior acts to makehimself whole again...it makes sense within the film as De Niro andNorton have been almost exclusively talking about Norton's shame andany possible sense of remorse Stone may or theoretically should feel ifhe really wants the parole he's seeking.

Film then tries to pull everything together by having Stone actuallyattain the religious enlightenment he had actively been seeking out(!!!!)---much to De Niro's confusion, and increasing anger. This is avery interesting development- both for the characters and for thefilm-and the handful of scenes that focus on Norton's new foundenlightenment are very interesting to observe--and personally i feltthat the film should have really dug deep into Stone's new found senseof self more then it does. The film kind of takes it for granted thatStone is more or less comfortable in his newfound sense of self worthand more or less spends the rest of the film with De Niro'sincreasingly agitated parole officer. Stone's serenity is very muchaggravating De Niro and the third act seems to be about how De Niroreactions to Stone's personality seems to change his own life for theworse.

Once again sadly for a film titled Stone--the movie doesn't seem tofocus too much on Stone--choosing instead to try and go overly in-depthon the only major character in the movie who's not named Stone. I don'twant to say that this is a mistake--as De Niro's character is the onewith the more potentially bottled up rage inside him--but i feel as acharacter---De Niro's corrections officer is just not all thatinteresting enough to sustain viewer interest. The character is kind ofrock stubborn and resistant to any change whatsoever--so in a sense heis the stone of the title as well--but this idea of De Niro's characterbeing the one that really needs the enlightenment and failing toachieve it never quite comes off as being anywhere near interesting ormoving enough the way that it should in order for the actions De Niro'scharacter takes towards the end of the movie to really land. De Niro'scharacter's actions make sense emotionally, but not so muchlogically--which may in fact be the point the film's trying to makealtogether but by this point--the film's already lost me to questionsabout what happened to Stone and how come he's suddenly not on screenanymore? Its a very nice mood piece overall--and the 2 leads are fineand all--but as the film goes on and the focus shifts more and moretowards De Niro's parole officer (which to be honest it pretty much hasbeen for most of the film already) and less and less on Norton's uniqueprisoner-dropping him from long stretches in the last half houraltogether-the film gets more and more problematic--and less and lessinteresting. See it if you like either of the 2 leads for sure, butotherwise you might be disappointed.

God, how can this three actors be a part of a film with such lack ofcontent... Drama? thriller? people must be blind.. It's a pity causethe actors are good, but the movie.. don't waste your money seeing iton cinemas.. after seeing it my first thought was, i wish i could getmy money back.. Ans honestly, i love robert de niro and edward norton,and of course the hottie milla jovovich.. But as Jozzey said.. Possiblythe worst movie maid, at least with this such good actors.. It's likeyou are always waiting for some action, or thriller, but trust me itwon't get better as you are seeing the movie.. wow, and the end..ahahhah, wow, it shure put most people with their mouth open.. AWFUL!!

Thank you!..

Ps:. voted 1 (awful cause there wasn't a worst vote..) ;)

This film has: an extremely convincing performance of nearly all of themain actors. Particularly noteworthy is Bob de Niro "comeback" afterall the despicable "lati-grobman"-produced mediocre disappointingfilms, he finally managed to give a performance of his Golden Years.Lee Strasberg could have been proud of him here. De Niro's acting inthis feature can be put in line with all his major dramaticachievements (Deer Hunter, etc). The main problem with this film iswhat I call the "no-story-thing". The script is so weak as if nonexistent. I'd like to pose the obvious questions: *Who* the de Niro'scharacter is? What was the historic psychological dramatic crime he hadcommitted in his younger years that made his wife wanting theseparation? I am 100% sure that de Niros' character is in no way"accomplished" in the film. It is simply too inconsistent andunconvincingly odd. The same goes for Mila Jovovich character. Miladelivered here one of the best dramatic performances in her entirecinematic career, that is true. But Mila's character is also remarkablyunclear, it is far too contradictory and inconsistent as well. We donot understand *why* she behaves the way she does, we do not understandwhat she feels about her troubled husband. If she is apsycho-prostitute or a cheap call-girl, that should have been statedmore clearly. The film lacks any message, any consistent line or awell-elaborated "story". The script seems to be too poorlyorchestrated. There are too many unexplained details that arealtogether "too odd to be missed" and at the same time clearly do notindicate anything meaningful. Like, why the wife of de Niro's charactermust have "different-sized" eyes; does this "eye disease" connotesomething particular, or is just another accidental sloppy "oddness"?The film leads its viewer nowhere, the director has no message to tellto his viewers, and the way the movie ends only strengthens the feelingthat the scriptwriter and the director simply did not know what to dowith it, the ending is a CLEAR regrettable fiasco.