Cool Hand Luke
His crime: nonconformity. His sentence: the chain gang. Paul Newman plays one of his best-loved roles as Cool Hand Luke, the loner who won't--or can't--comform to the arbitrary rules of his captivity.
Member Reviews
Cool Hand Luke - Derekstar
God damn, the New Hollywood was so awesome. This and The Graduate came out in the same year, each rightfully considered classics, and it's crazy to think that neither film could have been made even 2 or 3 years prior. It's both shocking and wonderful to see Paul Newman in the rain telling us that God doesn't exist, or the unnecessary cruelty of the guards after his mother dies. I didn't expect today, so just imagine seeing it in 1967. Basically, this film shattered my wildest expectations.A Cool Newman Movie - TheShamus
The film, "Cool Hand Luke" is a drama about a character named Luke (played by Paul Newman), who gets caught in the middle of a drunkin' crime and ends up working on the chain gang with a bunch of "tough as nails" 'bosses' from the old south.
The acting is very solid and the characters are quite well developed. The inmates gain a respect for "Luke" even though he is not the smartest or the toughest. He is a loner, and always dones things on his own terms.
The WWE wrestler, "Stone Cold Steve Austin" has referenced this character/movie many times, and borrowed the "refuse to quit" aspect of "Luke's" character.
The movie movies slower than more contemporary films, but there is enough here to make this an above average film. It is also "less Hollywood" than your typical Hollywood feature.
I would recommend this for individuals who don't mind a little slow moving plot, and like good characters.
/\/\/\/\ the Shamus /\/\/\/\The quintessential 60s movie - Superdave
A work prison serves as a setting for a showdown between rigid established authority and anarchic rebellion. By extension, this is a social metaphor for everything that happened in the 60s - Kent State, the Chicago 7, etc. The 60s were about rebelling against and trying to change the established order and having those in power strike back, usually with excessive force, and Cool Hand Luke is all of this in miniature. Here Paul Newman plays Luke, the essential rebel without a cause, butting heads with prison warden Strother Martin, who tells him, in a perfect encapsulation of the Establishment's attitude toward the youth of the 60s, "Boy you need to get yourself right in the head..." Martin gets the script's best material as the spokesman for Law and Order, warning the new cons, "Man tries to run, he gets hisself a set of leg-irons. He runs twice, he gets two sets. Don't nobody get a third set." In his world, as in the button down world of LBJ and Nixon, the most the individual could hope for was to be ignored. To raise a fuss was to get slapped down. The supporting cast is superb, especially George Kennedy as a tough, none-too-bright convict who becomes a reluctant admirer of the cool, anarchic Luke, marveling how "He just kept coming back with nothing." The script is a marvel, wonderfully memorable and full of ideas and attitudes about society, the value of and need for regulations, the place of the individual etc. and very entertaining, despite a bleakly existential message: there is no salvation or redemption, no reward for virtue, merely consequences for getting out of line. Also significant is the fact that the picture is firmly set in the humid, sun-scorched Deep South with its backward looking traditions and entrenched unwillingness to modernize. A rebel is not only slapped down, he is dragged backward in time against his will. So much here is watchable, meaningful and resonant that even 40 years later it deserves an audience.
Member Reviews
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Cool Hand Luke - Derekstar
God damn, the New Hollywood was so awesome. This and The Graduate came out in the same year, each rightfully considered classics, and it's crazy to think that neither film could have been made even 2 or 3 years prior. It's both shocking and wonderful to ...A Cool Newman Movie - TheShamus
The film, "Cool Hand Luke" is a drama about a character named Luke (played by Paul Newman), who gets caught in the middle of a drunkin' crime and ends up working on the chain gang with a bunch of "tough as nails" 'bosses' from the old south.
The acting ...The quintessential 60s movie - Superdave
A work prison serves as a setting for a showdown between rigid established authority and anarchic rebellion. By extension, this is a social metaphor for everything that happened in the 60s - Kent State, the Chicago 7, etc. The 60s were about rebelling against ...