ALL THE KING’S MEN (2006)

While the multi-Oscar’d 1949 version of Robert Penn Warren’s classic novel on Louisiana’s Huey Long may not be all it’s cracked up to be, it beats the pants off this dud. There’s an all-star cast (Sean Penn, Jude Law, James Gandolfini, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins, Patricia Clarkson, Kathy Baker) and not a believable moment from the lot of them. For some reason, the dialogue is all whispers (too much gumbo in their mouths to articulate?), except for Penn who alternates a gravelly monotone with gravelly shouting. No doubt they’re trying to merge with the murky cinematography and even murkier plotting from scripter/megger Steve Zallian who makes every camera set up & movement, every accent, every swell from the soundtrack score (was James Horner really asked to take Stark’s pandering pablum at face value?) feel utterly fraudulent in this breathtakingly misconceived project. Finally, right at the end, Zallian pulls off a creepy assassination sequence by staging it a la Oswald/Ruby and follows up with a deft series of character revelations . . . but only in the unused alternate ending.