The Last Castle
.5/4
Starring: Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Steve Burton, Clifton Collins Jr., Delroy Lindo
Rated R for Language and Violence
Movies like "The Last Castle" piss me off. It's unbearably boring, serious to the point of making a funeral look happy, and lacking in any sort of intelligence. What kind of a moron thought that this could work? Sure, there are a few nice performances, but for what? To speak asinine dialogue in the service of a story that is afraid to have any shred of darkness? To continually insult the brainpower of anyone who watches it? To put insomniacs to sleep? I don't know, but I'd like to ask director Rod Lurie and screenwriters David Scarpa and Graham Yost. And I want payment for my pain and suffering for watching this garbage.
The film can boast at least a semi-interesting idea: a prisoner rallies up the fellow inmates to take over the prison from the brutal warden. Unfortunately, any shred of promise that this premise has quickly goes right out the window. It takes forever to get going, takes another forever to unfold, before quickly wrapping things up in a violent climax that would be rousing if it weren't so obviously contrived.
General Eugene Irwin (Redford) is serving a 10 year sentence (what he is charged with is revealed later). He's been sent to The Castle, a military prison that is overseen by a man named Winter (Gandolfini). Winter is a fan of Irwin; "They should be giving him a medal, not sending him here," he tells his robot-like henchman Peretz (Burton). That is until Irwin realizes that Winter is a sadist who keeps control by brutalizing the prisoners, sometimes to the point of murder. After his complaints to his friend, General Wheeler (Lindo), fall on deaf ears, Irwin decides to take over the prison.
Lurie doesn't know how he wants to push the film. At times, Winter's methods are brutal, but at others, he's just a bully. This indecision essentially tanks the film because we feel indifferent to Winter since he's a writer's construct (despite Gandolfini's attempts to make him real). There's no sense of danger until the end, and even then, when all hell has broken loose, the guards still only use rubber bullets (which are only deadly in rare circumstances). Real guns are pulled out at the end, but it's so contrived.
The performances by the three leads, Redford, Gandolfini and Ruffalo, are effective, but that doesn't save the film at all. Redford does his low-key inspirational guy thing, Gandolfini ups the bluster to portray Winter as a man who's both a pussy and a moron. Ruffalo is interesting as the may-be traitor, but the writing lets him down in the final act. Soap stud Steve Burton is awful as Peretz; he looks like a member of a boy band than a soldier, and he acts like a deer caught in the headlights.
Rod Lurie has made some interesting, if imperfect, films. "The Contender" was a dense and intelligent thriller about dirty politics that was undone by one hell of a deus ex machina, and "Nothing But the Truth" was a provocative thriller about the necessity and price of free press that had a dumb script (and a big deus ex machina). Lurie did not write the script for "The Last Castle" as he did most of his other films, but that doesn't excuse him of blame (at least not entirely). He takes things way too seriously; someone who wrote a script as intelligent and perceptive as "The Contender" had to know that there is no way anyone could have taken this seriously, and yet, there isn't a one-liner to be found. Then there's the pacing. The film is only 2 hours and fifteen minutes long, but it seems to take forever. It goes on and on and on. The film likens the conflict between Irwin and Winter to chess, which would be interesting if the characters weren't so dull.
Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli both gave the film a positive review, and Berardinelli mentioned the patriotism of the story. They have their opinions, but even if I saw the film 12 years ago, I don't think it would have changed. Even taking in the context of its release, the film still sucks.
Starring: Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo, Steve Burton, Clifton Collins Jr., Delroy Lindo
Rated R for Language and Violence
Movies like "The Last Castle" piss me off. It's unbearably boring, serious to the point of making a funeral look happy, and lacking in any sort of intelligence. What kind of a moron thought that this could work? Sure, there are a few nice performances, but for what? To speak asinine dialogue in the service of a story that is afraid to have any shred of darkness? To continually insult the brainpower of anyone who watches it? To put insomniacs to sleep? I don't know, but I'd like to ask director Rod Lurie and screenwriters David Scarpa and Graham Yost. And I want payment for my pain and suffering for watching this garbage.
The film can boast at least a semi-interesting idea: a prisoner rallies up the fellow inmates to take over the prison from the brutal warden. Unfortunately, any shred of promise that this premise has quickly goes right out the window. It takes forever to get going, takes another forever to unfold, before quickly wrapping things up in a violent climax that would be rousing if it weren't so obviously contrived.
General Eugene Irwin (Redford) is serving a 10 year sentence (what he is charged with is revealed later). He's been sent to The Castle, a military prison that is overseen by a man named Winter (Gandolfini). Winter is a fan of Irwin; "They should be giving him a medal, not sending him here," he tells his robot-like henchman Peretz (Burton). That is until Irwin realizes that Winter is a sadist who keeps control by brutalizing the prisoners, sometimes to the point of murder. After his complaints to his friend, General Wheeler (Lindo), fall on deaf ears, Irwin decides to take over the prison.
Lurie doesn't know how he wants to push the film. At times, Winter's methods are brutal, but at others, he's just a bully. This indecision essentially tanks the film because we feel indifferent to Winter since he's a writer's construct (despite Gandolfini's attempts to make him real). There's no sense of danger until the end, and even then, when all hell has broken loose, the guards still only use rubber bullets (which are only deadly in rare circumstances). Real guns are pulled out at the end, but it's so contrived.
The performances by the three leads, Redford, Gandolfini and Ruffalo, are effective, but that doesn't save the film at all. Redford does his low-key inspirational guy thing, Gandolfini ups the bluster to portray Winter as a man who's both a pussy and a moron. Ruffalo is interesting as the may-be traitor, but the writing lets him down in the final act. Soap stud Steve Burton is awful as Peretz; he looks like a member of a boy band than a soldier, and he acts like a deer caught in the headlights.
Rod Lurie has made some interesting, if imperfect, films. "The Contender" was a dense and intelligent thriller about dirty politics that was undone by one hell of a deus ex machina, and "Nothing But the Truth" was a provocative thriller about the necessity and price of free press that had a dumb script (and a big deus ex machina). Lurie did not write the script for "The Last Castle" as he did most of his other films, but that doesn't excuse him of blame (at least not entirely). He takes things way too seriously; someone who wrote a script as intelligent and perceptive as "The Contender" had to know that there is no way anyone could have taken this seriously, and yet, there isn't a one-liner to be found. Then there's the pacing. The film is only 2 hours and fifteen minutes long, but it seems to take forever. It goes on and on and on. The film likens the conflict between Irwin and Winter to chess, which would be interesting if the characters weren't so dull.
Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli both gave the film a positive review, and Berardinelli mentioned the patriotism of the story. They have their opinions, but even if I saw the film 12 years ago, I don't think it would have changed. Even taking in the context of its release, the film still sucks.
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