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February 08, 2005
Sometimes Movies Fail
The Last Castle is an instance of this failure. You are supposed to root for the plucky former general Irwin played by Robert Redford who has been thrown into prison for disobeying an order that led to eight of his men dying. He was a hero in many wars and a POW in Vietnam, while the evil prison warden Col. Winter played by James Gandolfini never saw combat and collects military memorabilia. (I tried to think of a movie with a non-evil prison warden and the only one I could think of was Half Past Dead staring Steven Seagal and Ja Rule. A prison movie with a good prison warden and either a good or bad inmate could be interesting.) The movie tried to get me to root for Redford bucking the tyrannical warden and his cruel rules, but it failed in so many ways.
Let me count them.
First was the fact that the people I am supposed to be rooting for are prisoners. The simple minded one disfigured another soldier with a hammer and the crafty one was an officer who used the soldiers under him to smuggle drugs. For the rest I had to use my imagination and assume that they are there for crimes like rape and murder. I want these people to be in prison so it hard to root for them.
Second was the fact that the warden was mean and thus a bad man. But throughout the movie he only punished people who broke very reasonable rules like do not assault the prison guards. And again all the people he punished were criminals to begin with, so why I am supposed to feel sorry for them? If prison was fun they would call it the happy fun zone instead of prison.
Third was how they expressed Irwins contempt for authority. Irwin thinks the warden is a disgrace and stages a revolt so that they can hang the flag upside down to show how messed up the prison is. They repeat the phrase hang the flag upside down about twenty times to let you know what they are going to do. During the revolt at least one prison guard is definitely killed and it looks like several others may be killed as well. Instead of contacting an attorney to file a complaint against the prison staff, Irwin murders several U.S. soldiers. This is supposed to make me feel inspired by his courage?
Then there are the plausibility flaws. First there is the scene where the guards leave the entire prison population completely unsupervised for several minutes so Irwin can give his plan to the prisoners. Irwins biggest complaint is that guards kill soldiers. They do this by firing rubber bullets into the back of the head of prisoners who do not obey orders. Of course the guards fire at the prisoners from several hundred feet away and are armed with shotguns and do not even have scopes. Also early in film the warden notices every thing that goes on in the prison yard, even little things like salutes and basketballs. But he does not notice the prisoners building a two story tall trebuche. The prisoners can use the trebuche with great accuracy even though professional engineers with experience building these machines have great trouble doing so even with days of practice and the prisoners have never used this machine before in their lives. Then there is the grappling hook with attached chain fired with great accuracy out of water cannon. Again, the prisoners have never tried this before, but it works on the first shot and it hits the one spot that will attach it onto a moving helicopter from several hundred feet away. The drug smuggling prisoner then climbs the chain on the moving helicopter, overpowers the armed crew, and uses the helicopter to murder a guard. We never see what happens to the crew, but the helicopter crashes and no one bothers to rescue them so we can assume they are both dead as well.
And finally there is the climactic conclusion. Irwin has the prisoners fall in as the warden positions troops (finally armed with non-rubber bullets after at least 3-6 guards are dead). The warden orders the troops to fire upon the prisoners if they do not obey his orders to lie down. They do not lie down for the warden, but Irwin orders the prisoners to lie down and being rebellious murderers they instantly obey him. Irwin then goes to raise the flag and the warden orders the troops to fire at Irwin, but the guards (no doubt inspired by Irwin) refuse to fire on a hardened criminal who not ten minutes ago murdered around a half dozen of their fellow soldiers and tried to murder several more. As Irwin starts to raise the flag the warden shoots him in the back multiple times. Good for him and my favorite part of the movie. Saves the taxpayers the expense of a murder trial. Gandolfini finally takes the advice Tony Soprano would have given him and nips the problem in the bud. Then as the warden is arrested by the captain the prisoners salute the flag, which is raised right side up (!!!) to signify that the warden no longer runs the prison. I am sure that after a prison riot in which at least three guards and one prisoner are killed and a good part of the prison destroyed that the new warden will be much nicer.
Posted by Pete at February 8, 2005 03:06 PM
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Comments
The Green Mile also had a good-guy warden.
Posted by: chris at February 9, 2005 08:16 AM