1949
In the world, there are three evils. Packing, painting, and politics. I generally attempt to avoid all three of these terrible things. But this week, I could not. Packing and painting came in the form of having to slave away nearly all day almost every day trying to get our house ready to sell. Politics came in the form of All the King’s Men.
Willie Stark was an honest man. It was just too bad he had to ruin himself by becoming a politician.
Jack, our sort of narrator type person, is a reporter, whose boss tells him there is an honest man running for some position in a small hick town in the middle of nowhere. Apparently this is big news. So down Jack must treck to cover this election and interview this man, Willie Stark. Willie is a very nice person, who is brave and honest. So he of course loses his first election. But he and Jack become good buddies through the whole deal.
Willie now has decided to become a lawyer. But he has to beg people to let him take their cases for free. It’s very pathetic. I nearly feel bad for him. I say nearly only because there is just something about Willie I don’t like. I don’t know what it is, besides the fact he’s a politician. And now a lawyer. That’s two strikes against him.
Anyway, Honest Willie is somehow pulled into an election to become governor because the other guy needed someone to split the vote between said other guy and the opponent. This guy is now Willie. He runs a very strong campaign and… LOSES!!! Big surprise. But he doesn’t give up. In four more years, he manages to pull off winning and becomes governor of some state.
Now he has power. And you know what, he likes it. And everyone likes him so life is pretty dandy. Until he starts running things dirty and bribing people. Then one day his son gets drunk and kills a girl in an accident. We learn how truly corrupt Willie is because he tries to buy off the girl’s father. It doesn’t work. His son of course feels very guilty.
Willie, in order for people to like him and his son more, encourages his son to play in a big football game. But his son has a head injury. I for one, having six concussions under my belt, know you never play sports with a head injury. Stupid Willie. So of course tragically his son becomes paralyzed and people think Willie is stupid. HA! See I told you he was! I am so smart.
Willie is now being impeached for stupidity. They need senate votes though in order to win. So they try to buy of this old judge. Jack says the judge never did anything wrong in his life so they won’t be able to blackmail him. However, Jack is wrong. The judge did do something a long time ago that if it got out, would destroy his reputation. Jack tells no one about this but Anne, his girlfriend thingy, who happens to be having an affair with Willie. It’s so confusing keeping things straight sometimes. Anne tells Willie, who tells the judge he knows about him, and the judge then shoots himself in the head. It’s quite horrible.
Because he had the people on his side, Willie won anyway. So right as he walks out and after he makes a speech, Anne’s brother shows up and shoots Willie dead! Anne’s brother dies too. I honestly have no idea why he shot him, except for the fact that he hated him the whole movie for some reason. I don’t know why. But that’s not important! What’s important is it is THE END!
I liked this movie. What it was trying to do is show that no one is above corruption, even if you think you are and are actually trying to fix the corrupted people sometimes. It doesn’t matter, everyone has their price. We learn this as every single person in the movie was able to be bought with something somehow. Willie’s death in the end wasn’t tragic, it was a relief that a terrible monster had finally been slain.
On a critical stand point, the movie was well acted and engaging. I had every intention of hating it but I truly enjoyed watching this. It was a nice break from my unfortunate fate of packing and painting day in and day out.
