Why is it so bad?

I can't say for sure. After just seeing the movie, I don't understand why it has a low rating and why people would say this move is horrible. It's deeply moving, thoughtful, poetic, poignant, and tragic. I LOVE this movie. I should've seen this movie a long time before tonight.

I can't AGREE enough - this is one of the most insightful films I've seen. I suspect the low ratings are by the Fox News Rush-Limbaugh types who hate "liberals" like Sean Penn and are on a vindictive, childish campaign to destroy his career. They probably haven't even bothered to watch the film.

I found it to be a horrible film because I had little to no sympathy for any of the characters. The only thing that even seemed like a logical character builder was Law's character's initial connection to Stark. Stark had the potential to catalyze change as the do-gooder populist the film starts him out to be. That I can sympathize with so I can see how Law's character did. But then all of a sudden a switch flips in Stark at the fair during his speech. The next thing we see is that he's a d0uch3b@g running around with an armed heathen looking for ways to get over on the companies who have gotten over on the backs of the people. I'm sorry but that doesn't make him a revolutionary worth rallying around. It just makes him another crooked, vindictive politician.

The fact that Stark's shift seemed so sudden means the screenwriter and director failed horribly or copped out at character building. I can understand the blue collar citizens rallying around someone like that, but for Law's character to be seduced by it and to stick around for so long never made sense. Likewise witn Winslet opening up her crotch to someone she knows is crooked. They built her up to be Law's icon of perfection. Nobody is ever going to achieve that but they made her out to be a complete whore which seemed well out of left field. I chalk that up to piss poor character building by the director and screenwriter. Crucial details were obviously cut, missed or understated.

The only clever thing about the movie was the finale and the setup with the Doctor. That was pure poetry and about the only believable thing I witnessed after the carnival speech. On the plus side I also enjoyed the cinematography. I thought it was beautiful and captured the mood perfectly. The scenes surrounding the death of the judge were very powerful with all the shadows and the dark overtones. But ultimately I never truly felt sympathy because I could have cared less about any of the characters, even Hopkins'.

Overall verdict = fail

Southeners wouldnt have been able to "read" the script! hahahaha

The reason I think it's so bad is that it's a pale shadow of the 1949 original film (that won three Oscars) and it's an atrocity compared to the source material (a Pulitzer prize winning novel of the same name.)

I really liked this movie. I think the change in Stark is there to demonstrate how much politics can blur any good intentions that were there in the first place. I think Stark did still have some good intentions mixed in with the egomania he seemed to develop while playing the political games.

As for Kate Winslet's character, I think she was sort of at the heart of the film - Jack's ideal for perfection being shattered at the same time the ideals for the man he chose to work for getting lost among dirty political strategy.

I enjoyed the film, although there were a few things I wish they had made more clear - what the deal was with Adam, for instance.

I don't know why it's getting bashed so much...I think the professional critics are comparing it to the original.

On it's own, it's not that bad. Great performances, beautifully shot, nicely crafted. I can't figure it out...

Sola Gratia/Sola Fide/Solus Christus

1) Overwrought performance. Sean Penn just tried too hard to play Huey Long, or seemed to. It might have helped if the movie had been more about him.

2) Cartoonish supporting characters. Sugar Boy? Tiny? These characters should be more than just funny nicknames and bizarre behavior.

3) Convoluted narrative. Drop the Jude Law narration and have his character be another supporting character. I don't even understand what the hell Patricia Clarkson did or was.

Solution: Spend the time wasted on Jude Law's needless and irrelevant backstory/narration developing the core secondary cast characters, and use that character development to help further the overall narrative of Willie Stark's rise and fall.

They might even be able to fix this movie if they re-edited it and re-did the narration where necessary, especially if they had some footage of Gandolfini doing something besides aping his Sopranos character.

Overall, Jude Law was wrong for this movie. He's too British and frankly too effete to do American Southern Newsman, although I do note that during this movie shoot he was caught banging the nanny.

I'm sure the book is real good, Huey Long was a fascinating subject that scared both the right and the left in this country and some still believe he was killed as part of a political conspiracy. But the movie just didn't capture this.