The Last Castle Directed by Rod Lurie Written by David Scarpa and Graham Yost Starring Robert Redford and James Gandolfini Classification: AA Rating: **½ M ost prison dramas tell the same story, always some variation on the theme that pits the principle of individual freedom against the forces of repressive authority.
The freedom sought may be literal, as in the case of the wrongfully convicted ( The Shawshank Redemption) or of gallant PoWs ( The Great Escape). Or it may be spiritual, in the case of the redeemed miscreant who transcends his checkered past ( The Birdman of Alcatraz). Either way, it's a rather familiar tale. So we don't turn to the prison drama to hear a new story, but to hear the old one told well. The Last Castle tells it competently at best.
This movie locks us into a military prison, an aging pen overseen by a colonel-cum-warden whose surname pretty much sums him up. Yes, Winter is a chilly soul.
Setting aside his Tony Soprano charm, James Gandolfini plays him with a slight lisp, fastidious diction, and a pronounced inclination to view the prison as his personal lab and its population as a malleable strain of rats. As the petty despot hiding deep insecurities behind his wide aviator glasses, Gandolfini is the reason to see the picture -- his performance is infinitely better than the script.
Indeed, the screenplay is of the windy-yet-scant variety, the kind that takes over two hours of running time to service a 15-minute plot. The warden needs his nemesis, the film need its protagonist, so bring on Robert Redford as a three-star general -- a much-decorated vet once revered throughout the military, but since court-martialed and packed off to a barren cell with the other screwups.
Why? Well, the little secret gets revealed in the third act, but we know from the outset it won't amount to much -- given his role as a beacon of integrity, inspiring in the motley prisoners a renewed sense of soldierly pride, our hero can ill afford to be too tarnished.
So the moral parameters are set, allowing the warden and the general, the faux leader and the born leader, to engage in their symbolic chess game -- the one intent on beating down the men's spirits, the other determined to raise them as high as the American flag that flies over the rousing climax.
Of course, since villainy is invariably more interesting, Gandolfini has the easier task in the ensuing battle of wills. Redford must rely on his weathered handsomeness -- by now, his lined face has become its own icon. That's mainly what the film asks of him, and that's what he seems most content to deliver.
Yet give the man his due. When the inflated rhetoric turns red, white and blue -- "They cannot take away who we are. We are soldiers." -- Redford sucks it up and tackles the lines like a pro. And that's another brand of heroism, I suppose.
In his first feature, The Contender, director Rod Lurie was giving birth to his own script, which displayed sparks of real intelligence. Here, reduced to shooting borrowed and more mundane material, he treats the gig as a job of work, punching in with requisite diligence.
But this isn't the sort of picture that plays to his writerly strengths and when, at the 11th hour, it devolves into an action flick, you can see Lurie labouring.
By then, The Last Castle has rambled on too long for too little payoff. However, for the viewer, there are worse places to be incarcerated. When the screen finally darkens and the doors open for our release, we come away mildly entertained by the experience, although definitely grateful to get off with time served.