Mjeteconer Just perfect...

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

hall895 Robert De Niro and Edward Norton have long since established that they are great actors. Unfortunately Stone is a movie which pretty much completely wastes their talents. The plot does not engage, moves too slowly and quickly becomes repetitive. This is a movie which gets stuck in a rut that not even the greatest of actors can pull it out of.De Niro plays Jack, a prison officer who is soon to retire who evaluates prisoners who are up for parole, recommending whether they should be released. Norton plays Stone, a prisoner who will test Jack, tempt him, make him question things about himself. Used as the object of temptation is Stone's wife, Lucetta, who is given a mission to seduce Jack so that he may look upon Stone's case more favorably. Jack's moments with Lucetta add a little something different to a movie which otherwise is just De Niro and Norton sitting on opposite sides of a desk jabbering away at one another. Lots of talk, very little action in this movie.Stone is the convict but Jack clearly has some serious inner demons. There is an anger boiling inside him. If he ever had any faith he seems to have lost it. Stone meanwhile finds some new spirituality. Or maybe that's just a ploy to make him seem a better candidate for release. Jack's wife is deeply religious. Stone's wife most certainly is not. Spirituality hangs over the whole picture. The film appears to be trying to tell us something important. But it never gets the message across. Ultimately it all fizzles out with an ending which is not much of an ending at all, this is a movie with no real resolution to it. It is a movie which never comes together properly. With De Niro and Norton on board, playing off one another throughout, there was great potential. But that potential is wasted. Great actors let down by a lousy script. De Niro seems a little bored at times. Can't blame him really. But by and large he and Norton, as well as Milla Jovovich who plays Lucetta, make the most they can out of the material. The performances are fine. But the material is just not good enough.

The Grand Master Robert De Niro and Edward Norton were a great pairing in the underrated thriller The Score (2001) and seeing these two reunite for Stone had me interested. Ultimately the film was a total disappointment and I wanted to continue to persist with this however I found myself wondering why did I continue to do so. It just seems like the glory days for Robert De Niro and Edward Norton are well and truly behind them.Robert De Niro is parole officer Jack Mabry who is heading towards retirement and is aiming to finish the cases he's been assigned, one of them being the case of convicted arsonist Gerald "Stone" Creeson, played by Edward Norton who is up for parole. Jack ignores Stone's pleas for an early release from prison and in order for Stone to get out, he arranges for his wife Lucetta played by Milla Jovovich seduce Jack and try to convince him to release Stone from prison. From there, the mind games start.I just couldn't feel like I was engaged and interested with this movie. I just felt that it was too slow and disjointed.Robert De Niro's glory days seemed to have ended with The Score (2001) being his last decent movie. Since then, a lot of his movies have been met with little success. Perhaps he should look for better roles or even smaller roles. His role as Jack Mabry seemed like it could have been played by an actor 20 years younger than him.Edward Norton is another quality actor who has been better. He made a huge impact with his first role in Primal Fear (1996) which netted him critical acclaim as well as a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award nomination. Other movies such as American History X (1998), Fight Club (1999), and 25th Hour (2002) without a doubt are his best movies to date. I couldn't help but constantly expect that his role in Stone was going to be similar to his role in Primal Fear.Milla Jovovich as Stone's wife Lucetta was nothing special and I had the "I've seen it before" feeling when seeing her in this movie.Stone was a dour Thriller/Drama and as much as I wanted to see the movie unfold, I couldn't get into it.Unless nothing else is on, give this a miss.4/10.

Liam Blackburn Great film, should not be 5/10 on here. At first I was in doubt of the con's southern/ghetto accent but it ended up working well and he has good chemistry with Jack. There is expert pacing and the music is perfectly arranged. There is a constant edge-of-your-seat kind of feeling; like a tense vibration.There is all this background philosophical musing that I love in movies. This is what separates the great movies from the OK movies. This movie makes your brain go into a warm coalescing type frequency.She is an alien, as a matter of fact, you can tell that she is. The chemistry with her and Jack is good too. This is one of those movies that you just want it to keep going. The final scenes show all of Jack, his wife, Stone, Stone's wife all separated, looking into the ether. Stone is what humans are at first, after a long time they graduate to becoming human. Then as a human, they try and amend all their past mistakes until balance is reached. God is like a huge boxer holding his hand out on the tiny opponent's head as he flails away, this is Satan. Lots of good metaphors and a very indulging film.Best quote:You can't see forever

doug_park2001 "Stone" drags a bit in places, could be called vague, could be called anti-climactic, but it leaves a strong impression and, unlike many films of its type, is not instantly forgettable once the credits start rolling.Superb acting by all really helps carry it: Norton is a charismatically convincing con; Jovovich is one of the most realistically conniving vamps I've ever witnessed; Frances Conroy, as Mabry's long-suffering wife, is perhaps the strongest performer of them all in playing a character who is so painful that she tends to get ignored. De Niro gives the usual strong performance in playing Mabry, a character who continues to surprise with the way he straddles the line in his struggle between decent man and utter scumbag. Mabry also very effectively shows the dilemmas that parole officers face every day.The suspense here is more psychological than eventful. Being more of a character film than a plot film, "Stone" may leave many wanting more dramatic stuff to happen even though there are a few good twists and surprises here. Still, it compensates with some very interesting usage of symbolism, parallels, and foreshadowings, and consistently touches on spiritual and metaphysical questions without seeming too preachy or dogmatic.I'm glad I saw this.