The writer-director has taken a drama about the rise of a radical-populist ... and planted it in the soil of the early 1950s. There isn't an obvious problem with this, except that it makes no sense whatsoever.

| Feb 14, 2021

Occasionally, the dialogue exudes intelligence, but it's delivered with a perpetual drabness and spiritlessness by a cast that seems genuinely bored in their involvement.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Nov 15, 2020

All the King's Men makes me fear not for the Republic, but for the future of political movies. I can imagine a similarly misguided stab at bringing Harvey Milk to the screen.

| May 12, 2020

Penn... [fails] to give Stark enough charisma to convince as a vote-winning stalwart. Thus, the transformation of Stark hardly registers.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 3, 2018

There's a good movie in here somewhere but Zaillian's muddied storytelling and lack of focus hides it beyond recall.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 28, 2010

Static and dreary, drained of juice and drenched in "respectable" lighting

| Aug 30, 2009

"All the King's Men" is a grand scale embarrassment.

| Original Score: D | Apr 15, 2009

Mesmo que não o comparemos ao clássico de 49, este filme constrange pelo roteiro confuso, pela montagem artificial, pelas atuações decepcionantes e pela trilha excessiva, salvando-se apenas a bela fotografia.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 6, 2008

...a lush melodrama about the corruptibility of us all.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Feb 28, 2008

A "shouty" film... a bit too long, a bit heavy handed with the rhetoric.

| Original Score: C+ | Jun 21, 2007

Leaves out too much of the story to really work. Why are these people doing what they're doing? If I hadn't seen the 1949 version first, I would not have known.

Full Review | Original Score: 69/100 | Apr 29, 2007

As much an old-fashioned potboiler as it is a political morality tale.

| Feb 22, 2007

It's beautifully shot, acted and designed, but there's little cohesion in the story.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 30, 2006

We have a series of beautiful threads weaved together in such haphazard fashion that, despite their potential, form a surprisingly ugly quilt.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 2, 2006

What should have been an incisive study of the American political scene turns out a lumbering celluloid white elephant.

| Oct 30, 2006

A Louisiana swamp of overacting and muddled plotlines sinks this cumbersome new version of Robert Penn Warren's political thriller.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Oct 28, 2006

Penn is terrific and the production values are impressive, but All the King's Men gets lost in a poorly-structured, overly complicated plot that fails to engage.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 28, 2006

The film isn't dreadful: it is just generally disappointing.

Full Review | Oct 26, 2006

It's a typical politician's tale -- all talk and no action.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 24, 2006

Plays as a veritable autopsy of itself; to watch the movie is to watch it go wrong, to observe the tempting gleam of the film that might have been grow ever dimmer.

| Original Score: C- | Oct 14, 2006