| Last Castle, The |
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  (8/10)
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Runtime: 131 |
| Public Rating: 8.10 (10 votes) |
Director: Rod Lurie |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama/Action |
Year: 2001 |
| Writer(s): David Scarpa |
| Reviewed by: Arturo García Lasca |
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ThaI had been waiting for this one quite long, movies tend to take quite a long while to get to The Dominican Republic sometimes, this one was no exception. The director of the movie, Rod Lurie, has not done a lot of work prior to this film, but I had seen "The Contender" before, and I knew what he was capable of. Not that he showed some masterfull skills with that film, but he didn't seem to be bad. Just as in the film mentioned above, in here he worked with another great cast, and this last was the main reason I wanted to watch "The Last Castle" so badly.
It all begins with the General Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford), arriving to prison. It's a prison only for soldiers -from the army, the navy, and stuff like that-, which is under the command of the Colonel Winter (James Gandolfini). The General -not a gen. anymore, though- is a very condecorated man, he is a war hero who fought in several occations, saving lives, but it seems he made a mistake that costed him a 10 years sentence, which he plans to serve and then go back home. From the first day, Colonel Winters makes his rules very clear, and despite he feels certain admiration to Irwin, something makes him dislike him a bit.
That would just be the start. Irwin would later find out the Colonel isn't doing his job in the most proper way, and there have been some victims because of that. Irwin is a natural leader, so as time goes by, he becomes a leader to the other inmates, and they would all turn against Colonel Winters. But the men with the guns are Winter's soldiers, and there's not much the prisoners can do, even when they outnumber the army guards. Still, Irwin is an intelligent man, who'll figure out a proper strategy to somehow remove Colonel Winter from his possition. But it wont be easy.
That's mainly what the film is about, at first more dramatic, and then with some action showing off. I must admit I haven't seen much of Robert Redford's work, although he has been in Hollywood for decades, and in the 2002 Oscar ceremony he received an award for lifetime achievement. I know, I should be ashamed of myself. But still, it's not such a bad idea to start with his latest work, and I must say I liked his performance; they made his character a little bit too good, too perfect, almost, but still, it was quite believable and nobody can deny he was amazing.
Now, this might upset some, but from what I've seen of both leading man of this film, I prefer James Gandolfini over Mr. Redford. Yeah, Redford might be better, and he surely deserves much more recognition that Gandolfini, who was unknown a decade ago. But I've seen most of the latter's role, and I just love the way he plays bad guys. In this particular role he didn't play a regular bad guy, in here had to be kind at times, he had to be calm, he was a military man, but he was still mean, and so were his intentions, you could see it in his face. Gandolfini is great showing us his emotions, when he gets angry, and he's fed up with something, it's great to watch, he was very believable in this role, he and Redford by themselves made the film worth watching.
Of course, there are a lot of other people in prison just to be naming two, so I'd like to point out Mark Ruffalo's performance (as an inmate called Yates), who was pretty decent; most of us have seen him in "You Can Count on Me", and I believe we'll see more of him in the near future. I liked "The Last Castle", it's a pretty well made film, you must not miss it.
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