A convict inmate Gerald “Stone” Creeson (Edward Norton) messes with the head of his parole officer Jack Mabry (Robert De Niro). He is willing to do anything to get out of prison, including setting up Jack to be compromised by his wife Lucetta (Milla Jovovich).

The acting in this movie is superb — well, we have De Niro here. Everything else is boring, slow, unrealistic and flat out silly.

This screenplay was adapted from a play – and now that I know that some of the scenes make sense. It explains the endless fillers. A lot of empty scenery shots are applied when there is no dialog. The vapid sound track itself just drags things on. Jack constantly listens to evangelical radio talk shows and they simply don’t fit his character. He is a Catholic or thinks he is, but he does not act like one, feel like one, talk like one, respond like one – he is just not credible.

The inmate Creeson likes to be called “Stone.” Ok, we learn that in the first few minutes of the movie, and then he is called Creeson by everyone. Why is the movie called Stone? What was so important about the nickname? The movie could have been named after one of his tattoos and it would have much just as much sense.

There is just nothing going on that is interesting here. The movie is 105 minutes long and it has 15 minutes of real material. I didn’t see the trailer, but I suspect that the trailer shows everything there is.

Rating: * (because it was very good acting and that was the only reason why I sat through all 105 minutes).