October 18–25, 2001

movie shorts

The Last Castle

Robin Wright Penn appears in Rod Lurie’s new movie for about four minutes. She plays the flinty, resilient daughter of Robert Redford, an army general and veteran of Vietnam, the Gulf War and Bosnia, now imprisoned and stripped of his rank. She tells him off, they embrace, she leaves. The scene exists, you presume, to show the cost of being such a great military hero: You might inspire your men and defend your country, but your kid will be mad at you. Still, the film insists, being a leader of men is most important. Redford’s fellow inmates ask him to lead their revolt against their murderous, sniveling colonel of a warden (James Gandolfini), whose lack of combat experience and penchant for collecting military artifacts make him less of a man than Redford, who proceeds to teach him some lessons (planning a prison takeover that includes the unbelievably secret assembly of large weapons). Preachy, self-important and contrived, populated with clichéd characters (the weak but admirable martyr, the cynic who needs to be turned at the last minute, the feminized villain), the movie rah-rahs the military system (rank, loyalty, obedience) and hates on the individual deviant, rather than, oh, considering their interdependence. (Though Wright Penn’s appearance — that teeny scene — opens up all kinds of complications in the "hero" that the movie then goes on to bury.) Before Sept. 11, The Last Castle’s flag-waving overkill probably seemed like so much action-flick business. Now, however, it roused my fellow viewers to applaud the most ridiculous and alarming events (like, a suicide pilot, fighting for the "good guys"). But the timing of its release doesn’t change its essential triteness. And besides, I think Sylvester Stallone made this movie a few years ago.

—Cindy Fuchs