All-star cast stumbling through winded script

Rating: 5/10 (19 March 2008)

Robert De Niro got many of his A-list friends to appear in his second movie as a director. But only one stands out from the all-star cast: Alec Baldwin in the part of Sam Murach, a covert recruiter for the intelligence community. He has only half a dozen short scenes, but thanks to his iceberg approach, his performance is by far the most memorable all the same. Nearly everybody else's acting feels clumsy, and the storytelling is spectacularly cumbersome, bringing back long-suppressed memories of Oliver Stone's "JFK". In fact, this is worse: 90 minutes into the movie, you don't even know what it's about. Nevertheless, it's a good-looking picture. I particularly enjoyed how the ferry, evacuating Edward's wife from the Skull & Bones retreat, dissolves into the night-time mist, how Murach stands shrouded in tobacco smoke at the recital, and how Wilson Senior's suicide note finally goes up in flames. Having said that, there is also a very unsettling torture scene that might help change the minds of those who think water-boarding is just another interrogation technique.