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80All ye searching for Primal Fear redux, abandon hope. The character-driven drama he (Curran) offers viewers instead is something far more complex, cracked and unique for an American movie boasting big-name stars: an unblinking glare into the abyss.
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78Mostly this is a tense, portentous, and provocative piece.
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75Stone isn't for everyone. But for all its shortcomings, it is courageously original.
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75I was with the movie until its head-scratcher of an ending, too oblique for its own good.
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75De Niro is so good at playing a man who has essentially emasculated himself because of fear of his anger, so that sex and anger may be leashed in precisely the opposite way, as in "Raging Bull." And Norton, the puppetmaster - it may not even be freedom he requires, but simply the pleasure of controlling others to obtain it.
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75Genuinely odd in its mixture of bluntness and indirection, screenwriter Angus MacLachlan's study in biblical temptation is saved from its own heavy-handedness by a fine quartet of actors.
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75Ultimately, Stone is a haunting film about what it feels like to be really and truly lost.
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75So few Hollywood movies go here that this one's oddly welcome, even in its most turgid moments, of which there are many.
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75There's a taste of Southern Gothic here, even though this story is set in Michigan. The incendiary mix of religion, sex and crime threatens to ignite every time Stone tries to turn the interogations back on Mabry.
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70Norton, too, keeps us guessing, though his pseudo-tough-guy line readings (and cornrowed hair) are initially distracting. But his scenes with De Niro -- who fills every twitch or glance with Jack's long-buried guilt -- are the guts of the movie.
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67At its best, the film works as a morally freighted film noir, with Jovovich particularly good as a breathy femme fatale who seduces De Niro with a mere change in inflection.
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67There are hints lately that De Niro is trying to build a fourth, restorative act to his wayward film career, and he brings some real fire, without which Stone would be helpless.
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65Because the film is overproduced and unconvincing in telegraphing its several gestural themes, its excellent lead performances get lost in what feels like an aesthetic tug of war over what a movie should be, and do.
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63The craftsmanship is impeccable as is the acting, but the storytelling is where the movie falls down.
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60Stone is highly charged and vibrant, and pits Edward Norton against Robert De Niro for two utterly electrifying performances.
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50Stone isn't the straightforward thriller it appears to be, but the alternative turns out to be dull and lifeless. At least the title is apt: Like a rock, Stone has no pulse.
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50Nothing is etched in anything remotely resembling a hard surface in Stone.
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50Say this about Stone: When it's good, it's very good. And this twisty, atmospheric drama is at its best when Edward Norton takes center screen as the title character.
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50The results prove disappointing, simultaneously over the top and underwhelming.
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Oct 20, 201050Though nearly sabotaged by the ridiculous sexual subplot at its center, this soul-searching drama works best at the character level, couching insights about sin and forgiveness under the guise of conventional genre entertainment.
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50No, the trouble isn't with them but with a screenplay (by Angus MacLachlan) that loads their characters with too much symbolic baggage and then points them off in obscure directions.
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Oct 20, 201050At odds with its own lofty and base instincts, Stone ultimately channels neither compellingly.
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42Milla Jovovich slinks cartoonishly as Stone's seductive wife, on a mission to compromise the lawman. Lordy.
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40There is not a credible moment in this overly calculated melodrama.
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40This is a film about people who are lost, and the filmmakers draw a direct line between their characters' existential wanderings and the religious obsessions they find for themselves.
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38A movie steeped in sin that squats awkwardly in a cinematic purgatory between tawdry and talky.
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25If only one character in Stone reacted as someone in his position would to the preposterous situation at hand, the movie would be 15 minutes long.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 1 out of 3
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Mixed: 2 out of 3
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Negative: 0 out of 3
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