The first 10 minutes are the best part of the film, then it´s just pointless, weak story, you could skip 20minutes and still not miss anything important.

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.

Robert De Niro and Edward Norton were a great pairing in the underrated thriller The Score (2001) and seeing these two reunite for Stone had me interested. Ultimately the film was a total disappointment and I wanted to continue to persist with this however I found myself wondering why did I continue to do so. It just seems like the glory days for Robert De Niro and Edward Norton are well and truly behind them.Robert De Niro is parole officer Jack Mabry who is heading towards retirement and is aiming to finish the cases he's been assigned, one of them being the case of convicted arsonist Gerald "Stone" Creeson, played by Edward Norton who is up for parole. Jack ignores Stone's pleas for an early release from prison and in order for Stone to get out, he arranges for his wife Lucetta played by Milla Jovovich seduce Jack and try to convince him to release Stone from prison. From there, the mind games start.I just couldn't feel like I was engaged and interested with this movie. I just felt that it was too slow and disjointed.Robert De Niro's glory days seemed to have ended with The Score (2001) being his last decent movie. Since then, a lot of his movies have been met with little success. Perhaps he should look for better roles or even smaller roles. His role as Jack Mabry seemed like it could have been played by an actor 20 years younger than him.Edward Norton is another quality actor who has been better. He made a huge impact with his first role in Primal Fear (1996) which netted him critical acclaim as well as a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award nomination. Other movies such as American History X (1998), Fight Club (1999), and 25th Hour (2002) without a doubt are his best movies to date. I couldn't help but constantly expect that his role in Stone was going to be similar to his role in Primal Fear.Milla Jovovich as Stone's wife Lucetta was nothing special and I had the "I've seen it before" feeling when seeing her in this movie.Stone was a dour Thriller/Drama and as much as I wanted to see the movie unfold, I couldn't get into it.Unless nothing else is on, give this a miss.4/10.

Great film, should not be 5/10 on here. At first I was in doubt of the con's southern/ghetto accent but it ended up working well and he has good chemistry with Jack. There is expert pacing and the music is perfectly arranged. There is a constant edge-of-your-seat kind of feeling; like a tense vibration.There is all this background philosophical musing that I love in movies. This is what separates the great movies from the OK movies. This movie makes your brain go into a warm coalescing type frequency.She is an alien, as a matter of fact, you can tell that she is. The chemistry with her and Jack is good too. This is one of those movies that you just want it to keep going. The final scenes show all of Jack, his wife, Stone, Stone's wife all separated, looking into the ether. Stone is what humans are at first, after a long time they graduate to becoming human. Then as a human, they try and amend all their past mistakes until balance is reached. God is like a huge boxer holding his hand out on the tiny opponent's head as he flails away, this is Satan. Lots of good metaphors and a very indulging film.Best quote:You can't see forever