All the King's Men : Movie Review


With remakes the likes of Poseidon, The Pink Panther, and The Wicker Man already dotting 2006's cinematic landscape, why not provide a new take on the 1949 political thriller, All the King's Men? In actuality, writer/director Steven Zaillian claims not to have based this on the earlier movie, preferring instead to return to the original source material. Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize winning novel All the King's Men is a loosely fictionalized account of the rise and fall of Louisiana governor Huey Long. Regardless of what inspired the screenplay, it's a bad fit. All the King's Men is a patchwork of poor choices and uneven results, the most obvious of which is its pacing. With inappropriate flash-forwards and badly placed flashbacks, All the King's Men lurches unsteadily forward amidst variable performances and impressive cinematography.

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Author : James Berardinelli