The Last Castle

The Last Castle

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Movie Reviews of The Last Castle

Movie Review: Touching Story of Human Dignity
Summary: 5 Stars

The story's plot revolves around a remarkable man, Lieutenant General Eugene Erwin played by Robert Redford, and his sentencing to a ten-year prison sentence at a military prison for a crime unmentioned until later in the film. As Erwin is brought to prison, we meet the leading antagonist, Colonel Winter, played by James Gandolfini, a quiet soft-spoken man and the prison warden whose personality seems to be much deeper than his civilized exterior. After Erwin and Winters meet some ten minutes or so into the movie, we can see that the rest of the film will be about a test of wills between the two.

The film's climax culminates in the prisoners staging an overthrow of Colonel Winter and his guards by the prisoners led by Erwin. The director really thought up some innovative ideas for how prisoners might deal with helicopters, riot cars with hydraulic hoses, and guard towers. Many of the other reviewers wrote that they thought the prisoners' solutions to the helicopters, riot cars with hydraulic hoses, and guard towers were a bit far fetched. I don't agree and found everything plausible if not very likely. The prisoners use food trays as shields like Roman Legionnaires in Tetsudo formation (a solid line of shields) to protect themselves from the water cannon on the riot car and some of the prisoners crawl under the building and cut off the water main feeding the water cannon. They then use the water cannon to shoot a grappling hook attached to a chain, which entangles the helicopter's landing skids. Even better, then a prisoner, who is also a helicopter pilot, shimmies up the chain and overpowers the helicopter pilot. See what I mean about plausible but farfetched?

Meanwhile the prisoners have built a trebuchet (a gravity catapult) and are using rubber medical hose to lob bags of flammables at the guard towers. I got a particular chuckle out of this one since I remember engineering students at university hooking gigantic piece of rubber medical hose between two antennas on our dorm's roof to hurl water balloons at an opposing dorm. I can definitely vouch that rubber medical hose works fine for lobbing things great distances.

However, the crown jewel of the film is Redford's portrayal of General Erwin. Redford gives Erwin a force of character and a determination that makes it hard not to like him. He's very believable as a general. The film also relates that Erwin is a former POW and Vietnam veteran. Redford's lines about the experience correspond with every novel I've read about the POW experience in Vietnam. Once again, Redfrod's performance rang true. A minor subtheme for the film is chess and all of Erwin's moves are related to a chess game including the eventual overthrow of the prison. One reviewer wrote that Erwin was just as much a manipulator as Gandolfini's Colonel Winters and to this point I disagree. Erwin portrays a general who leads men by example and respect. This is called leadership and has nothing to do with manipulation. A general leads men to accomplish a task that he or she may or may not agree with. A manipulator USES men to accomplish tasks for the manipulator's own ends. There is a strong difference between the two.

I highly recommend this excellent drama.

Review by: Maximillian Ben Hanan

Summary of The Last Castle