given the uneven quality of his movies and a complete lack of a personal style it seems they're the product of collective work with a minimal contribution from penn as a director.
my vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur13767631/ratings
Going by his films, he seems to be focused more on the performance aspect of his films and while delegating the technical aspects to the crew he works with. The crew is more responsible for the style of each film, while he seems to be more involved with the actors and the emotional content of the script.
Overall, I dislike Penn's work as a director. The overwhelming majority of his work is boring (in my opinion). I only found The Pledge to be tolerable. I was the only thing he did that the promise of something compelling even if it didn't fully achieve it.
I dont think his films are intolerable, theyre watchable. There are much worse movies out there.
I like the injun runner a lot. Everything fell into its place with this one, the cast, a quirky screenplay a laid back tone and correct pace. No high faluting nonsense as well. but it wasnt a result of penns eternally shining talent just a coincidence cuopled with the availability of all necessary resources
Goddam you rated fearnloathing two! Its one the best flicks of the century
my vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur13767631/ratings
The Indian Runner, The Crossing Guard & Into the Wild all featured fine performances but lacked a compelling story/execution. They weren't experiences to carry beyond the first viewing. The Pledge was more interesting because it required more thought about the characters/plot with the audience having to determine the killer by following clues as the film never explicitly reveals the killer. I prefer thought-inspiring films that use a plot to anchor is direction opposed to lingering "documentarian" films that follow the random or boring everyday excursions of characters with age-old conflicts without the semblance of a "big idea."
That brings us to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. As Roger Ebert opined, the film is a mess distorting the substantive content of its prose with visual detours of drug-induced madness that are without meaningful conclusion. The film is merely an experience of faulty perception, which you either appreciate/relate to or do not as you cannot find value in hallucinatory madness. I fall into the latter category. Fear and Loathing is more of the most polemic cult films of the century (similar to Natural Born Killers) rather than the best. It certainly is more beloved by specific audience set it was meant to appeal to but less revered among critics and those requiring a bit more coherence. It was Terry Gilliam's expressed wish to provoke audiences into loving or hating the film. He succeeded. Either you think this film is great, or you think its complete, utter garbage. Given its lack of thematic substance or the burial of it under Gilliam's surrealist insanity, it come off to me as junky, incoherent counter-cultural pseudo-psychobabble better chucked off into the trash bin. I'm actually surprised I rated it a 2. I see more as a 1, but maybe I admire the effort.