Jump to content

The Last Castle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Royanee (talk | contribs) at 18:10, 16 March 2009 (→Plot: Fix spelling error "rool in with the trucks" -> "roll in with the trucks"). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Last Castle
Original Theatrical Poster
Directed byRod Lurie
Written byDavid Scarpa
Graham Yost
Produced byRobert Lawrence
Don Zepfel
StarringRobert Redford
James Gandolfini
Mark Ruffalo
Steve Burton
Delroy Lindo
CinematographyShelly Johnson
Edited byMichael Jablow
Kevin Stitt
Music byJerry Goldsmith
Tom Waits
Distributed byDreamWorks SKG
United International Pictures
Universal Pictures
Release dates
North America:
October 19, 2001
Australia:
November 22, 2001
United Kingdom:
January 4, 2002
Running time
132 mins
CountryUnited StatesUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$72 million[1]
Box office$27,642,707[1]

The Last Castle is a 2001 drama film directed by Rod Lurie, starring Robert Redford in the lead role and James Gandolfini as a supporting actor. The film portrays the struggle in a fictional military prison called the Castle, between the inmates and the warden. Eugene Irwin (Redford), a Lieutenant General sentenced for disobeying orders, challenges the warden, Colonel Winter (Gandolfini), over his cruelty and disrespectful treatment of the prisoners. After mobilizing the inmates, Irwin leads an uprising aiming to seize control of the prison and remove Winter from his command.


Plot

As the film begins, General Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford) is court-martialed, stripped of his rank, and sentenced to imprisonment at a maximum security military prison. He has been condemned because he ignored a presidential order and sent troops on a mission in Burundi that ended with eight U.S. soldiers being murdered. The prison's warden, Colonel Winter (James Gandolfini), who has greatly admired Irwin in the past, invites him to his office in a show of admiration. When Irwin insults Colonel Winter regarding his extensive collection of military memorabilia and overall competence, he is visibly angry and his previous admiration for the General turns immediately to animosity.

Though at first apathetic to the general plight of his fellow inmates when they try to enlist his help, Irwin begins to realize that his hopes for a quiet stay in prison and a dignified life beyond confinement is unrealistic. Irwin is punished harshly after stopping a guard from clubbing a prisoner who was being punished (by military regulation his punishment was required to end but the guard was attempting to make him continue), partially due to Irwin who was spotted trying to teach a correct salute to a prisoner. After that, Irwin attempts to unify the prisoners with the building of a "castle wall" of stone and mortar—a project they had already been assigned to work on by Winter—comparing the prison's design to that of a medieval castle.

After Irwin succeeds in earning respect and restoring a sense of honor to the men, a displeased Winter orders his guards to destroy the wall. Former Marine Corporal Ramon Aguilar (Clifton Collins Jr.) takes a stand before the bulldozer, in an act of defiance similar to that of the anonymous protester of Tiananmen Square (who famously faced down a tank). Winter orders a sharpshooter to fire a normally non-lethal rubber bullet directly into Aguilar's head killing him. After the wall is destroyed, Irwin and the inmates pay final respects to Aguilar in formation, singing what they can remember of the Marines' hymn. Winter later tries to make amends with Irwin, but Irwin calls him a disgrace to the uniform and says he wants Winter to resign. Winter sneers at this demand and reads off the conviction record that sent Irwin to prison. Slowly, the prisoners begin acting like soldiers again, using code words and incomplete gestures to re-establish a military-like code of conduct. Winter is angry about this but can't do anything about implicit actions. He reaches out to a prisoner named Yates (Mark Ruffalo) a disgraced West Point graduate who is incarcerated because he smuggled drugs while serving as a helicopter pilot, hoping Yates will inform on Irwin in exchange for a reduced sentence. Irwin ignores the inmates who are part of his plan to get rid of Winter and asks Yates to help them, not least because Yates' father is held as a POW in Vietnam along with Irwin.

Irwin organizes a plot to throw the prison into utter chaos by taking control of the facility. His intent is to show Brigadier General Wheeler (Delroy Lindo) (the warden's superior officer, who is arriving to carry out an inspection) that the warden is unfit and can be removed from his command under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. During the visit of General Wheeler to Irwin, Winter receives a letter threatening the kidnapping of Wheeler by the prisoners. The kidnapping was a fake and is only to make Winter look bad. Wheeler wants Irwin to be removed from the prison but that can't happen unless either Irwin or Winter request this, and neither man is willing to surrender to the other. Irwin then tells his plotters that the fake kidnapping has been used to detect the measures that the prison guards would utilize during an actual uprising. The key to their plan becomes Yates, because he will need to take over the Bell UH-1 helicopter that is the trump card for the guards in case of a riot.

Yates is later revealed to have stolen a flag that Winter prized, and soon after he is thrown into solitary confinement, the uprising begins. Using improvised weapons and tactics similar to that of a military unit, they manage to capture an armored vehicle with a water cannon and the helicopter, which they use to cause destruction and riot. The prisoners call the Generals HQ and inform them that there is a riot. Winter regains control by threatening to use live ammunition against the prisoners. He knows from Yates that Irwin is planning to raise the American flag upside down, a signal that the situation is no longer under control. Winter orders his men to shoot as Irwin begins to hoist the flag up the pole. They refuse on the orders of Capt. Peretz (Steve Burton). The colonel proceeds to shoot and kill Irwin himself and gets arrested by Capt. Peretz. The prisoners salute as they see that Irwin has actually raised the U.S. flag in the correct manner. It waves proudly above the prison's walls as Winter is led away in handcuffs by his own officers and the General's troops roll in with trucks.

Cast

Main

  • Robert Redford as Eugene Irwin, a highly decorated Lieutenant General of the U.S. Army, who is imprisoned in the castle prison for disobeying a presidential order. He is estranged from his family because he spent nearly all his life away from them while serving his country.
  • James Gandolfini as Colonel Winter, the prison's warden who manages the maximum security military prison with an iron fist, questionable tactics and implied cruelty; however, the Pentagon approves of his record because previous violent attacks on personnel who run the prison have ceased under his command. Winter rationalizes his harsh treatment of the prisoners to Irwin, saying they are no longer soldiers but criminals. James Gandolfini earned $5 million for co-starring in the movie after finishing the third season of The Sopranos in march 2001.[2]
  • Mark Ruffalo as Yates, a disgraced West Point graduate who is incarcerated because he smuggled drugs while serving as a helicopter pilot. Mark Ruffalo was diagnosed with brain tumor while filming.[3]
  • Delroy Lindo as Brigadier General Wheeler, the warden's superior officer. Wheeler is asked by Irwin to fire Winter, citing Winter's cruelty and the death of Ramon Aguilar. Wheeler earned his star while under General Irwin's command.
  • Clifton Collins Jr. as prisoner and former Marine Corporal Ramon Aguilar. Having knowledge through his father in constructions, Aguilar manages the building of the new wall under General Irwin.

Secondary

Production

The Castle like appearance of the former Tennessee State Prison

The movie was filmed mainly at the 103-year-old former Tennessee State Prison in Davidson County, Tennessee. It had previously been used for filming in The Green Mile and The Last Dance, and was chosen because of its gothic and castle-like appearance. The State of Tennessee offered to provide the location rent-free, with exemption from the state's 6% state sales tax.[4]

A crew of 150 worked on refurbishing existing buildings and constructing new buildings in a time limit of nine weeks. A 250-feet (61 m) long and 20-feet (6 m) high wall was built, serving as the prison's entrance. Further a metal walkway and two towers were built as vantage points for the guards. The vantage point at Colonel Winter's office with a large picture framed window, allowing the warden to survey the actions of the inmates, was also built and designed for the production. Director Rod Lurie insisted on having the prisoner's cells facing each other, which isn't the case in the Tennessee State Prison, and had therefore a set built by Production Designer Kirk Petruccelli in a warehouse near the prison.[5]

Cinematography

For contrasting the balance of power the crew used multiple cinematography methods including color, lighting, camera and costumes. In the warden's office intense color was used to reflect freedom or power in contrast to the robbed colors from the yard which doesn't signify strength. The contrasts shift in the progress of the story showing the gaining power of the prisoners. The American flag in the yard is described by Petrucelli as "the heart of The Castle" and is the only exemption to the color palette. [5]

Cinematographer Shelly Johnson with the collaboration of Rod Lurie and the design team used lighting and camerawork to signify the shifting of powers. For example the yard is in the beginning naturally lit and more influenced by daylight in contrast to Winter's office which is artificially lit with lamps. As the film progresses the office gets more infiltrated with the exterior light through the broken window. The message was also more emphasized through the camera. Hand-held cameras were used in the filming in the yard to make the audience feel as if they were "participants in the action". However a very precise, sterile camera composition was used in the warden's office. In the progress of the film the prisoner's world gets preciser while the colonels world gets looser.[5]

Costume designer Ha Nguyen reflected the contrasts through the uniforms of the cast. The film starts with the prisoners having their clothing divided after ethnicity with African-Americans wearing different headwear, Latinos wearing vests and various arm accessories, and the White Americans have cut-off t-shirts. After the arrival of General Irwin, the prisoners start wearing more uniform clothing in a "sharp military manner". The uniforms of the prisoners were changed from the usual chocolate brown color to light grey, because of its muddled look on film and too darkness in some scenes. Ha Nguyen also contrasted the non battlefield ribbons found on Colonel Winter's uniform with the battlefield medals found on General Irwin's uniform (seen only in the opening scene as Irwin is inducted into the prison).[5]

The wall created by the prisoners in the middle of the yard also represents change and incarnation. It's at first a "discombobulated mess" representing the non unity found in the prisoners and becomes though General Irwin a perfect wall, making the wall a "powerful symbol of the results of leadership".[5]

Effects

Special Effect supervisor Burt Dalton and stunt coordinator Mic Rodger were responsible for creating the final battle weapons. The trebuchet, which the prisoners used for throwing rocks, was capable of throwing a 150 pound rock 200 feet far with an accuracy of ten feet around the target. The water canon had the power of shooting 20 gallons of water per second. Some of the cast have done their own stunts including Mark Ruffallo who has done the sequence where he's hanging from the helicopter. The scenes where the interior of the helicopter is seen wasn't made with blue screen effects but a special gimbal was used to hold a full-sized Huey-A type military helicopter. The gimbal was capable of rotating the helicopter 360 degrees and vertically move it 20 feet. The gimbal was controlled by a computer, allowing Dalton to precisely set speed and movement ensuring precise repeatabilit for multiple takes.[6]

Release and Reception

The original poster that was pulled out of circulation

Before the film's release Dreamworks pulled the original movie poster from circulation, which depicted an American flag flying upside down, due to the public sensitivity about the September 11th attacks.[7][8] The film was released on October 19, 2001 in 2,262 theaters domestically, grossing $7,088,213 on its opening weekend with an average of $3,133 per theater. The release spanned 63 days (9 weeks), closing on December 20, 2001, with a total domestic gross of $18,244,060.[1] The film was further released in foreign countries grossing $9,398,647 with the lowest grossing $5,954 in Egypt and the maximum $1,410,528 in Germany.[9]

The film has scored a 52% rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 113 reviews 59 of which are positive and 54 negative with an average rating of 5.6/10 and the consensus:"The Last Castle is well acted and rousing for the most part, but the story can't stand up to close scrutiny".[10] At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 42/100, based on 32 reviews.[11]

Reviews

Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle said that "Lurie is either brilliant, manipulating genre conventions to test his audience's ability to tease out moral issues—or he can't think straight".[12] Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie three stars saying that "the immediate experience of watching The Last Castle is strongly involving, and the action at the end, exciting".[13] It received 3 out of 5 Stars on IGN saying that though a solid, well paced and well acted film, it "suffers from this overall militaristic, streamlined approach".[14]

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times criticized the film saying "The Last Castle's pretensions lead to a slow, even stately pace, what should be crackling confrontations between [Irwin and Winter] end up playing more like a tea party than a Wagnerian battle of wills".[15] Owen Gleiberman of the Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a "C+", saying "Yet as staged by Lurie, the drama has all the subtlety and surprise of a showdown between the sissy-bully son of Captain Queeg and a hero who's like a fusion of Brubaker, Spartacus, and Norma Rae".[16] Variety criticized the film saying "Much of the potential dramatic juice has been drained out of "The Last Castle," a disappointingly pedestrian prison meller that falls between stools artistically and politically".[17] Claudia Puig of the USA Today criticized the film's script saying that the prisoners were fighting "a losing battle with an implausible script". [18] Elvis Mitchell of the New York Times said that "the movie is exuberant, strapping and obvious—a problem drama suffering from a steroid overdose".[19]

Awards

The Last Castle won the Taurus World Stunt Award for best fire stunt and was nominated for best aerial work and best stunt coordination sequence.[20] Clifton Collins Junior was also nominated for an ALMA Award in the "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture" category.[21]


References

  1. ^ a b c "The last Castle". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
  2. ^ "Yonda Lies The Castle of Tony Soprano". IGN. 2001-01-08. Retrieved 2009-01-07. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  3. ^ Bozzola, Lucia. "Mark Ruffalo". Blockbuster Online. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
  4. ^ "The Castle Can Be Found in Tennessee". IGN. 2001-01-11. Retrieved 2009-01-07. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  5. ^ a b c d e "Castle Walls". Behind the Scenes. Dreamworks. Retrieved 2009-01-08.
  6. ^ "The Castle Breach". Behind the Scenes. Dreamworks. Retrieved 2009-01-25.
  7. ^ Vercammen, Paul (2001-09-26). "Fall movies undergo changes". CNN. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  8. ^ "Hollywood Lights Dim After Attack". FOX News. 2001-09-11. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  9. ^ "The Last Castle: Foreign Box Office". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  10. ^ "The Last Castle". Rotten Tomatoes. IGN Entertainment. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
  11. ^ "The Last Castle". Metacritic. CNET Networks. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  12. ^ LaSalle, Mick (2001-10-19). "Complex 'Castle' a morality tale". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  13. ^ Ebert, Roger (2001-10-19). "The Last Castle". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  14. ^ D., Spence (2001-10-19). "Review of The Last Castle". IGN. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
  15. ^ Turan, Kenneth (2001-10-19). "'The Last Castle' Flies the Flag". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  16. ^ Gleiberman, Owen. "The Last Castle". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  17. ^ Mccarthy, Todd (2001-10-19). "The Last Castle". Variety . Retrieved 2009-01-09.
  18. ^ Puig, Claudia (2001-10-18). "Redford can't protect 'Last Castle'". USA Today. Retrieved 2009-03-10.
  19. ^ Mitchell, Elvis (2001-10-19). "Manning the Ramparts for Old Glory". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
  20. ^ "Nominees/ Winners 2002 Taurus World Stunt Awards". Taurus World Stunt Awards. 2002. Retrieved 2009-01-22.
  21. ^ "Nominees for 2002 ALMA Awards". United Press International. 2002-04-17. Retrieved 2009-01-22.


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=The_Last_Castle&oldid=277688517"