The Last Castle [DVD] [2002]

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 and yet has never experienced active service. He calls the inmates "the enemy" and is convinced his men and himself operate "behind enemy lines" and is also extremely petty and pedantic about the following of minute rules and regulations.

Irwin on the other hand is the exact opposite. He is a scared and 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 and straining and never complaining. Saluting isn't allowed 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, and it is through such tricks as this that Irwin becomes the inmates' leader.

To cut a very long story short Irwin eventually leads the inmates in rebellion against the corrupt and unfair system that Winter is running. In quite a preposterous and yet extremely entertaining riot scene the "lunatics take over the asylum" and dethrone Winter from power. I still want to know how they hid the trebuchet!

There is a huge slice of "all-American" patriotism parp mixed up in it all with a real cheesy and almost sickening ending to do with the flag, but on the whole the film is extremely entreating and 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 and 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 wall at the idea that there is no difference between the men who run military prisons in the 21st century and 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 totally incompetent. Winters is stupid and predictable (sort of like this movie) and we know Irwin will take him down just as soon as he decides to wake up and 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 and decides the prison commander needs to be removed from his post. After all, Irwin was a P.O.W. in North Vietnam, still baring the scars of his torture, so Winter and 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 and 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 basically 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" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." If you take "The Last Castle" as pure Hollywood escapism (i.e.., disengage brain and forget about the way the real world functions) you can enjoy it. The acting and direction are both competent, even if you are left with the definite impression that Redford is on auto-pilot and the fact that Gandolfini is not given all that much to do but look out a window and 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.