The Last Castle Details

Robert Redford was paid a sizeable amount of money to star in this men-behind-bars drama. Unfortunately, neither he nor the film deliver full value for money. The increasingly crinkly Redford plays a court-martialled three-star general who's sent to a military jail, where he becomes embroiled in an acrimonious battle of wills with martinet warden James Gandolfini (of The Sopranos fame). However, despite trying to produce a character study rather than an action melodrama, The Contender director Rod Lurie offers up a fairly generic prison flick — a patchwork of ideas from earlier penal movies such as Billy Wilder's Stalag 17, Cool Hand Luke and Brubaker. Even Mark Ruffalo's cynical bookie, the only character of interest, is reminiscent of William Holden's Sefton from the Wilder war film. Nevertheless, Lurie's pedestrian approach to the material cannot stop actors of the calibre of Redford and Gandolfini from providing a passable two hours of entertainment.

Stale drama of redemption and discipline that recycles most of the clichés familiar from other prison and gung-ho war movies, and miscasts Redford as an action hero.