the last castle

i'm not very familiar with robert redford's film catalog, i think i've maybe only seen one or two of his movies before. now having seen this film, it becomes very clear why he has had the career he has- this man is a star! when he is on screen you hardly notice or care about anyone else- he is electric! in this film redford plays a military general who was courtmashalled and send to a military prison. when he arrives he finds that the warden has been treating the prison like his own private kingdom, doing whatever he wants, even killing inmates. redford tries to rebuild the men's spirits and unite them to over throw the warden and help the men regain a sense of pride. the warden does everything he can to try and stop redford, but once he has the men's respect, it becomes a chess game where we already know who is going to get checkmate. there are many good aspects to the movie, from the prisoner's plight, to the symbolic building of a wall, but the real draw of the movie is just to watch redford do what he does. he is amazing to watch and the film is infinitely better for it.