Stone 2010

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It's a tour de force for Norton, who fills the air with an intense and yet thoughtful patter about why Stone is in the joint, what he did, what he doesn't want to think about/talk about any more and what he thinks Jack Mabry wants to hear. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: [It ends] up subverting expectations by denying pleasure. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: The seesaw effect of the characters' clarity and confusion helps Curran & Co.'s unexpected, occasionally heavy-handed fumblings toward examining spiritual emptiness find purchase. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: De Niro plays a deeply flawed and hypocritical corrections officer with just the right mix of self-righteousness and vulnerability, embodying a man whose soul has withered from decades of corrosion. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: If you're of a mind that actors as talented as Robert De Niro and Edward Norton could make even pedestrian material watchable, Stone puts your theory to the test. And surprise! They can. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: What looked like a juicily absurd film noir disguised as a generational acting battle is something closer to a dirge -- a dead-serious meditation on faith and grace, redemption and damnation. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: You can feel the movie's gears grinding throughout, first in the rote suspense mechanics and later in the ham-fisted religiosity (conveyed through an endless soundtrack of evangelistic talk radio). Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Genuinely 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. Read more

Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: Stone is that rare film that refuses to be easy. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: A disconcerting and challenging film. It leaves you wondering. How cool is that? Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: [A] hooey-heavy prison-and-faith drama. Read more

Hollywood Reporter: A thoroughly unconvincing melodrama about a sexual triangle that few viewers are likely to buy. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Stone 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. Read more

Ian Buckwalter, NPR: This 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. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: How Curran and his cast chew into it is often mesmerizing. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: A movie steeped in sin that squats awkwardly in a cinematic purgatory between tawdry and talky. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Mr. De Niro fails to make anything about his miserable character poignant, and Mr. Norton's overwrought intensity borders on hysteria. The desired moral dilemma never arrives. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: An ambiguous film boasting a quartet of mesmerizing performances... Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The craftsmanship is impeccable as is the acting, but the storytelling is where the movie falls down. And with such a poorly realized narrative, it's hard to be enthusiastic about the many things Stone does right. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Stone could have been some sort of a procedural, a straightforward crime movie, but it's too complex for that. It is actually interested in the minds of these characters, and how they react to a dangerous situation. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It presents us with four characters who are fascinating, specific and yet in some way unknowable, not like the usual characters in fiction but rather like people we might meet in life. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: As in every good dialogue-driven film, talk equals action. The excitement here is sparked by the verbal and gestural give-and-take between the actors. Read more

James Bradshaw, Globe and Mail: It's worth the price of admission to see Norton and De Niro sparring across a prison-house desk. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The movie wouldn't work as well as it does without the impressive support they get from the film's leading ladies, Frances Conroy and Milla Jovovich, who act as catalysts for the explosive drama. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Moral ambiguity and ethical compromise are at the heart of this meandering prison drama, but at a certain point we simply don't care anymore who is base and baser. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Though 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. Read more

Nick Schager, Village Voice: At odds with its own lofty and base instincts, Stone ultimately channels neither compellingly. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Ultimately Stone sags under its own overblown philosophical weight, with a strained and painfully obvious spiritual subtext finally smothering what could have been a simple, effective psychological thriller. Read more