Good concept, poorly executed.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Blistering performances.

This movie is about religious philosophy. If you are not into religious philosophy or seeing the raw sexuality of Milla Jovovich then go elsewhere. The movie asks questions about the seemingly contradiction of free will vs. God's will. If God has a master plan, then aren't our wrong doings part of it? If so, should we regret our sins?In what appears to be a role reversal De Niro places a parole officer and Edward Norton a prisoner. Early on we find out that De Niro has some anger management problems. As a child he hit his brother in the head with a hammer and threatened to kill his daughter if his wife left him. He is the parole officer who judges people.Norton plays a convict who started a fire to cover up a crime committed by his cousin. His nickname is "Stone." Stone, according to the new religion of Norton is the beginning phase of a soul. We all start out as stones and work our way up to humans as part of the eternal process. His simple questions and answers cause De Niro to think and examine his own life and religious belief.Milla's religious views come out late in the movie, and they too have an effect on De Niro. Much of the movie consists of various conversations with very little action. The background radio chatter of a religion station sets the mood. If you know how to listen, God will talk to you. Sex, nudity, f-bomb and a few other expletives that surprised me.Milla is extremely sensual in this film: Her eyes, raised eyebrow, lips, smile, mannerisms, nudity, and especially her whispers.

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

This is the typical movie you watch by chance in TV. There are two great actors (not in their best times) and an interesting actress (Jovovich)and you give it a chance.After the introduction the spectator at least thinks that he's going to watch an indie, alternative film full of deepness and complexity.OK, there is none of them. The plot tries to be complex and you spent the whole time waiting for something that doesn't appear. We don't have to mix a strange, non-clear message with a complex one. About the deepness or the finality of the story, the same. A bit of new age, a bit of cheap psychology, a mixture of religious and ethics content, you mix everything and you get a cocktail from which we get this ridiculous movie.I'm sure that there is someone who will defend this movie because of the characters's ambiguity and something like that, but don't be fooled, the characters personality, actually is very bad written.Following with the acting, the overall isn't as bad as other points of the movie but it isn't remarkable. De Niro is such a genius that even doing the minimum effort he success in being enigmatic but, on the other hand, he's very far from him best moment. However, after having such a great career it's forgivable for a near to 70 years old man to be just the shadow of what he was. It's worse if the situation is the same, but being only 40 and doing the same performance again, again and again... but worse than ever. Very bad for you Norton, I think if you keep on like this, you're finished. Milla Jovovich, on the other hand makes a unexpectedly solid interpretation, congrats for her. If you want to watch a solid psychological thriller, this isn't your movie. This is a bad experiment and a big loss of time.

Stone is nothing more than a bog standard,run of the mill film which has been done time & time again really once you've seen one film like this you've seen them all. The only saving grace for this film is Robert De Niro who out-acts every other person in this film,his talents are truly wasted with this script. Along side De Niro is Edward Norton an actor that to me has always been a poor & very overrated actor but in Stone he is surely at his worst where he plays an predictable character which has been seen in films for years,he plays a prisoner who is so unconvincing its painful. I'm not sure if it is Norton's poor acting or the abysmal script that makes the character Stone just so unbearable. The directing is another low point of this film, the directer John Curran is trying to be smart & clever with his directing of Stone but ultimately ends up with a disjointed mess where at times some of the scenes are just totally out of place. Lastly the religious meaning to the film & the attempts to be profound are so terribly forced its unreal.I give this film 5/10 which is very kind as the film itself is only worth a 3 but I've given it an extra 2 stars simply for De Niro's performance which simply carries this terrible film