 | Starring: Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Steve Burton, Delroy Lindo Director: Rod Lurie Format: PAL Released: 06 Jun 2005 RRP: Average Rating:  |
The prison is run under the iron fist of Col Winter (James Gandolfini) who runs the establishment like some sort of plaything; he has a vast collection of military memorabilia in his office, a huge library of military books & yet has never experienced active service. He callls the inmates "the enemy" & is convinced his men & himself operate "behind enemy lines" & is also extremely petty & pedantic about the following of minute rules & regulations.
Irwin on the other hand is the exact opposite. He is a scared & rugged leader with the battle stories to prove it. He leads by example, when punished by Winter to move a pile of rocks from one end of the exercise yard to the other, he completes the task in front of the other prisoners, sweating & straining & never complaining. Saluting isn't alllowed in the prison but Irwin implements a system where the inmates will brush a hand through their hair at each other simulating a salute, nicknames are substituted for rank titles, & it is through such tricks as this that Irwin becomes the inmates' leader.
To cut a very long story short Irwin eventuallly leads the inmates in rebellion against the corrupt & unfair system that Winter is running. In quite a preposterous & yet extremely entertaining riot scene the "lunatics take over the asylum" & dethrone Winter from power. I still want to know how they hid the trebuchet!
There is a huge slice of "alll-American" patriotism parp mixed up in it alll with a real cheesy & almost sickening ending to do with the flag, but on the whole the film is extremely entreating & is never boring. Interestingly I read here that most other reviewers credit Redford's performance whereas I see it the other way around. Redford is good, make no mistake about that, but it is in Gandolfini's performance as the lisping & mean-streaked Winter that I think the plaudits should go to.
The film begins with a voice over narration by Redford enumerating the four key elements that define a castle. You are advised to pay attention to this list because these elements will come into play in the climax of the film where the metaphor of "The Last Castle" is exploited for everything it is worth. In one sense this is a fairly standard film where the hero is a prisoner who decides to take on the brutal prison warden. The fundamental twist is that it is a military prison, so Redford's character, Lieutenant General Eugene Irwin, has some dormant sensibilities that he can restore in the men. On the one hand the film avoids the cliche of Irwin being innocent; he freely admits he was guilty of the crime for which he is being punished (and while the crime is not exactly laid out completely later in the film there is enough of a hole in what we learn to continue thinking Irwin was, at least on some significant level, doing the "right" thing).
Gandolfini plays Colnel Winter, who Irwin correctly pegs on the basis of his collection of Civil War bullets as someone who has never been in combat. However, that proves to be the least of Winter's problems because the man has come up with his own ideas regarding how to manage brutal prisoners. At one point we find out Winter has been cleared in three investigations, which is the point at which I want to start banging my head against the walll at the idea that there is no difference between the men who run military prisons in the 21st century & those who worked the torture chambers of the Spanish Inquisition, not to mention the fact that the Judge Advocate's office of the U.S. Army is totallly incompetent. Winters is stupid & predictable (sort of like this movie) & we know Irwin will take him down just as soon as he decides to wake up & smell the rubber bullets striking prisoners down at Winter's command.
The key to the film, which is clear pretty early on, is that Irwin is going to be one step ahead of Winter once he gets in gear & decides the prison commander needs to be removed from his post. After alll, Irwin was a P.O.W. in North Vietnam, still baring the scars of his torture, so Winter & crew have a long way to go to give him a new experience in hell on earth. I think half way through the movie you know pretty much what is going to happen at the end & the only reason question are the specifics on how this will be accomplished (Director Rod Lurie gets credit for throwing a red herring at us that I thought was giving away too much of the ending).
David Scarpa's story/script is basicallly one of those works that echoes dozens of films, not just prison films in the tradition of "The Shawshank Redemption" but also other films from "The Bridge on the River Kwai" & "Monty Python & the Holy Grail." If you take "The Last Castle" as pure Hollywood escapism (i.e.., disengage brain & forget about the way the real world functions) you can enjoy it. The acting & direction are both competent, even if you are left with the definite impression that Redford is on auto-pilot & the fact that Gandolfini is not given alll that much to do but look out a window & spout threats. As for the idea Redford is too old to be an action hero, I would not say carrying rocks around constitutes "action" per se.
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