04/27/10 - Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke (1967, 126 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061512/

I'd been wanting to watch this for some time. It really didn't follow from anything else I'd seen this month so it is somewhat a random pick. Oh well.

The film is about Luke (Paul Newman) who is sentenced to work on a chain gang in a rural prison. There he meets Dragline (George Kennedy) who pretty much runs the place. These interplay between these two guys is where the majority of the movie takes place but there are quite a lot of minor roles scattered around.

First and foremost: Paul Newman is amazing in this. I think this immediately goes up there with the Al Pacino performance in Dog Day Afternoon as one of my favorite performances ever. The reason for this is the range that Newman has. He has to act all sorts of different ways: angry, sad, calm, cool, suave, and frustrated. And he doesn't falter for a single step. Frequently I found myself in amazement at how well he dominated the role. There's two main points in particular. First there's the couple of scenes after he finds out that his mother has died. Here we get the emotion pouring out but also balanced by his quiet and calm. Second, there's the final scenes in the church. Here we get Luke talking directly to God and it's simply chilling. Obviously, there's no actor here so it serves as a monologue of sorts and Newman delivers with flying colors. I got chills as I watched this "conversation" as I was able to see the frustration that Luke had been building up the entire movie. Finally, it's not really a showcase of Newman's talent but the final montage is incredibly moving. Though I never really found myself loving the Luke character himself, the ending is quite fitting. Dragline is describing how when they took the body away Luke still had his characteristic smile. The montage that follows is just a whole bunch of moments from the movie of Luke being his suave and cool self, with this wondrous smile. It's done so well and is just greatly emotional. I'm pretty sure a similar smile creeped on my face as I watched Newman one last time.

As I mentioned above, I never found myself loving the Luke character. I mean, I thought the Newman acting was great but for some reason I never found myself rooting that hard for Luke. I mean, I guess I didn't know what to feel. When he escaped the first time I wanted him to get away. But the second and third times I just didn't feel the same way. I don't know what it really was but I don't think I ever really got attached to the character. Maybe this had something to do with his treatment. Sure he was at a prison but I also got the impression that a lot of the extra punishment doled out to him was deserved because of his behavior. But then there's the loop that he wants to escape because he's getting extra punishment and he's getting punishment for trying to escape. Anyway, I still felt it all came back to Luke's initial escape which (while I was rooting for him) was never really justified to me as absolutely necessary.

Finally, Cool Hand Luke comes down to being known for a handful of scenes. There's some memorable chases, an egg eating contest, and quite a lot of digging. Frequently I found myself being pulled from "important" scene to "important" scene if that makes sense. Somewhat like a picaresque but not quite, I felt like the movie had some pacing issues. Though at just over two hours, I never really found it running that long, but maybe the story was stretched out a bit too much. That's not to say the film isn't immensely fun because it is - these main scenes are all handled really well.

Overall, I gave this film an 8/10. Really this is like a 7/10 film but the absolutely stunning Paul Newman performance bumps it up to an 8/10. It's akin to how I ranked There Will Be Blood. Anyway, though not a huge fan of the character Luke, I am reminded that I need to check out more of Newman's roles.