This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Since no one got it, let me explain this to you. This is an attempt to adapt the theme of a 1966 movie that Ingmar Bergman made called, Persona. In that movie, a prominent actress has had some sort of mental breakdown, becomes unfeeling and has retreated from communication with the world. A maid is hired to take care of her who is healthy, vibrant, carefree. As the two characters develop a connection they start to rely on each other for validation and emotional support, eventually the characters reverse roles. The actress returns to the top of her professional and it is clear that she has drawn energy and emotional power from the maid. At the same time the maid has been left an enervated mass of self-doubt and paranoia. The artist transformed herself by art, but accomplished that by sucking the life out of the original youth and vitality of her companion.The same thing happens in this interaction between a prisoner (Ed Norton) and his case officer (Robert De Niro), or at least that is the idea. In the beginning, the prisoner is vengeful, paranoid and self-destructive. At the same time, the case officer is a religious man with a settled working class existence, apparently respected in his job and a tranquil, picturesque family life.The scenes of interaction between Ed Norton and Robert De Niro are of the essence because we see the case officer slowly become more manipulative and hostile, at the same time that the prisoner becomes more natural and willing to let go to the extent of acceptance if he is denied parole.The problem is that beginning with what must have been a masterful script, somehow the director, and most especially the film editor, never got the message and apparently never knew what their own movie was about. As a consequence they tried to twist into a straight thriller with ambiguous motives, artificial tension as we follow closeups of the officer's gun and phone calls to the officer's home that might or might not be threatening.Both of the characters have a guilty secret from their pasts that they are attempting to deal with. The prisoner finally recognizes his guilt and puts it in perspective, and at the same time he derives a sort of spiritual sustenance by a direct connection to the sound current of the yogis. The case officer never deals with his guilty and it isolates him from his wife and the religious aspects of his life that ultimately give him no spiritual sustenance.In the end the two characters have reverse positions. The prisoner is both free and healthy. The case officer is trapped in own sickness of guilt and paranoia. The final confrontation that takes place in an alley does not work because, apparently for Hollywood purposes, the case officer has a gun in his hand. You now understand this movie better than the director did. Too bad, because it could have been great. Can you imagine, Persona accessible to American audiences? It could have been a classic.

Jack Mabry (Robert De Niro) is a complicated man. As a young father, he hangs his daughter out the window to force his wife Madylyn (Frances Conroy) to stay. He has a few weeks before retirement as the prison parole eligibility officer. One of his last cases is Gerald 'Stone' Creeson (Edward Norton). He's combative but also demanding to get out early. He gets his wife Lucetta (Milla Jovovich) to seduce Mabry.De Niro and Norton get a couple of interesting characters to work with. This seems to be set up for some great acting and intense character drama. I do like the interactions between the two leads. Jovovich is able to keep up. It stumbles here and there. I don't really get the mishmash of religion in this. I think this could have been award winning performances if the movie is better written.

...well, this movie was waste of my time and waste of Edward Nortons talent. Categorized as "drama" and "thriller"? I would add new category for it : "boring as can be". Nothing happening, full of religious nonsense, you just hope for it to end. It's almost never that I force myself to turn off the movie before it ends but I have barely endured this one. Total, but really total waste of time. I have no idea who makes a movie like this, or even worse - who enjoys it? Robert De Niro is making some bad movies lately, right? I mean, OK, you can act depressed and guy with inner conflict but come on. What has become of once such a great actor? The only reason I am giving it 2 stars is Edward Nortons performance...and yeah - Millas appearance :),I'm just weak for her :)

Maybe I "missed the point" or "didn't analyze the character's actions enough" or didn't go out and discuss the movie with friends over cherry pie. I don't know. Here's what I do know - I was looking forward to this film BIG TIME! I'm a fan of the 3 main actors; and considering what Edward Norton pulled off in American History X (the scene where Norton surrenders to the police, and he's all buffed out/shaved head/goatee... and then does that grin/eyebrow lift... scarier than anything "Hannibal Lecter" ever did!), I was more than eager to see him in another prison movie. But a movie about emotions and redemption and whatnot... some movies pull this off beautifully. I just saw an indie flick called "I Melt With You", and I recommend it for any male out there. A synopsis would sound dumb, but any guy who is reaching 40 and realizes his life isn't what he thought it would be when he was 20 will be able to relate to all 4 main characters. But "Stone"... none of what the characters did seemed at all realistic, and their "personality changes" seem based on nothing at all. Like I said in my title, the movie was incredibly boring, and when it was over, all I could think of was, "What was the point of that??"