Product: All the King's Men [Blu-ray] (2007)
Rating: 4.0
True to the book
The bottom line on this movie is that Sean Penn is genuinely scary as Willie Stark, and Jude Law is Jake Burden as I imagined him when reading the book. Law as Burden is a slow-cooker of a character, slowly becoming more and more corrupt. That is how the book portrays him.Louisiana embodies the melting pot as no other state, with its mixture of "hicks", African-Americans, Creoles, Indians, Cajuns, Italians, etc. "All the King's Men," the book and the movie, is mostly about the "hicks," who like Huey Long, hailed from North Louisiana. Burden, from south Louisiana, is the narrator. The aristocracy, the Burdens, Stantons and Judge Irwin, brought down by the people in the personna of Willie Stark. "All the King's Men" is a subtle exploration of corruption, not an in-your-face thriller. Read the book, then see the movie. Both are well worth the time.