Movie of the Week: The Last Castle

   

 

    Movie of the Week (6/23/13-6/29/13): In honor of the passing of the late James Gandolfini last week, I have decided to do a movie that is my personal favorite of his which he has a leading role in. That movie is The Last Castle, which is about a three star General being sent to a military prison for disobeying an order he thought was wrong. Once in the prison he begins to see how it is ran, which is with an 'iron fist' by a Colonel. The General does not approve of this method, so he soon rallies up the inmates, which was not hard because they all respect him, and rages a war on the Colonel to teach him a lesson.
    There are not very many known actors in this film, but the few we know are great ones, one is a legend and one made himself a legend on T.V. Robert Redford plays General Irwin who is sent to the prison and like every other Redford performance, he does a great job, I mean he's Robert Redford! But the actor who stole the screen the best, at least to me, was the late James Gandolfini who plays Colonel Winter, the officer in charge of the prison. This was he best movie role to me, and he nailed it, by the time the climax arrives I really hated his character, which we were suppose to. James Gandolfini gave us a great performance as the villain here. We also have Mark Ruffalo who plays an inmate who soon becomes Irwin's right hand man and Delroy Lindo as a friend of Irwin who can see that something is a miss in the prison.
    What is great about this film is the development between the characters, which was nicely written through dialogue and actions. The dialogue is very good, it has to be because there is a lot of it and this is mainly a drama, at least until the climax. I also liked the strategy that Irwin and the inmates used throughout the film and the climax, it was very creative, which was also a reason it was exciting to watch, you wanted to see how it would turn out. The director, Rod Lurie, also did a good job because he filmed it as a drama and not as a thriller or action film. Even during the climax there are no real fast cuts in the scenes, which made it seem more realistic. Almost like that Michael Mann feel from his film, Heat.
    Once the climax finally gets there, we are happy to see some action taking place, at least that is what some people might think because it might be a little slow for some. Although that was probably the main problem with the film it didn't affect it that much because of the great performances from Redford and Gandolfini. Once the film ends however, which is almost right after the climax, some people might find it anti-climatic, but is was still a good ending because it had good symbolism in it. We find out the true meaning of Irwin's plan and we respect him more in the end. This is a good, underrated drama with some great dialogue and performances.                                                         
3/4 Stars.