The Last Castle

Court-martialed three-star General Irwin (Robert Redford) is imprisoned in a partly renovated castle by a megalomaniacal warden (James Gandolfini from Soprano’s). Irwin slights both the wanton warden and his civil war artifact collection, reinstills pride in his abused fellow convicts and leads a rebellion. This preposterous testosterone tenet about the manipulation of men jostles memories of Cool Hand Luke as a failure to communicate escalates to violence and cons are depicted as sympathetic, latent heroes. This is pseudo-patriotic drivel one may expect from the Kevin Costners (The Postman) and Reynolds (Rapa Nui) rather then Redford and former Los Angeles film critic and West Point graduate turned director Rod Lurie (The Contender). Mark Ruffalo (You Can Count on Me) gives another excellent performance among all the runaway scenery chewing.