Forty years ago it was unheard of for a wife to just up and run away from her young child and her husband.
A man who reacted badly to this in the modern day would seem to be over reacting.
Hey, it’s no big deal. Women leave their marriage all the time. Back then, however, it was a big deal. Nobody did it.
It’s not right to show De Niro, who plays a Parole Officer (PO), making such a grave mistake in the opening scene. That colors all his interactions with his wife after that. Their relationship seems forced and corrupt afterward, evil. It makes it seem like they both still think of nothing else even after forty years of marriage.
It would be better to make them seem a happily married couple when Stone (the felon, played by Edward Norton) starts turning the screws. Contrast is key. There’s more contrast in a happy 43-year marriage versus marital discord than in an unhappy 43-year marriage (who stays together that long with issues like that?) versus marital discord.
Let De Niro and his wife be happy seniors in the beginning, and reveal the facts of Scene One via flashbacks as the rubber hits the road.
Stone’s plan seems like a long shot, a careless act of extreme desperation, rather than a ruthless, calculated machination. He should first notice a weakness in De Niro… A casual mention of the PO’s wife reveals a nervous twitch and an unexpected outburst.
Further probing about children produces a nervous twitch, hands gripping his chair, other symptoms of anxiety. The clever felon notices these things and hatches a plan to exacerbate them. Drama!!!
Stone comes across initially as a fake, too. No sex with his gorgeous wife in eight years since he’s been in prison? Don’t blame the prison, they have conjugal visits all the time.
Maybe Stone would just rather drop the soap in the showers. He even says so, in a two-second (almost subliminal) outburst, “I want to feel my prick up her ass.” Are you kidding?
Any straight guy would want to face a gorgeous young dame like Milla Jovovich while he’s having sex with her, with his “… prick up her tight cunt.” A bad ass white boy who braids his hair in prison to look pretty? Gay.
De Niro, as Stone’s PO, is painted as the bad guy from the beginning. Clearly Stone has no resentment for what he did. De Niro is right to rattle Stone on his past actions and motivations.
Stone’s been bragging about his crime for eight years to all the other inmates, and he can’t even pretend to be remorseful with the parole officials??? The other inmates haven’t coached him on his every move?
Personally, I think they should enforce silence on all prison inmates like they used to. Total silence, no radio, no TV, no talking except work-related things. If they want to talk openly, do it in a classroom studying for a GED or associates degree. Let them spend the rest of their hard time thinking about what they did to get there.
There could be more contrast in the prison environment, too. Most state prisons have no air conditioning. The heat would be intolerable in the summer. Stone should be happy going to his PO’s air conditioned office and find excuses to stay there, not run off to hob nob with his prison pals.
I never made it past Act One (25 minutes). Not even the enticement of seeing Milo Jovovitch as a seductress in a dramatic role could keep me watching any more of this one. I popped it out of the DVD player, and it’s back to Netflix in the mail.
Clearly, the screenwriter has a desperate determination to push all these gay paradigms in my face. Directly into my subconscious, using all the gimmicks of dramatic manipulation!!!!
I can see why the screenplay was so popular in Hollywood, however.
Why it attracted major talent to the three lead roles.
They use every possible venue to force gay rights upon the public.
