All The King's Men

All the Kings Men is almost a venomously pessimistic film about the political process with men using common folk for their own power, innocents becoming subservient to these men, a potentially honest reporter becoming hatchet men, good men revealed to have terrible pasts, and the one purely good character is reduced down to an assassin. Now really I don't mind pessimism if done well, and I don't think this is even done poorly actually. The problem for the film I think largely comes from the acting since certain parts of the film work brilliantly. Any scene focused on Mercedes McCambridge's character, and the scenes that reveal an directly evil Willie Stark played by Broderick Crawford. These work extremely well the problem is John Ireland, the other lead, is horribly bland, as are most of the supporting players. They fail to make any impact,  and to make it worse is I don't find Crawford entirely convincing in his scenes when he's not power hungry Willie. I actually think the screenplay and direction are there the acting just isn't.
3/5