THE LAST CASTLE

In Brubaker, Robert Redford played an idealistic warden who took on a corrupt prison system. Here he plays an inmate who takes on a corrupt warden, the only difference being that this time out he’s a three-star general incarcerated in a military holding pen for disobeying an executive order. His cool righteousness pisses off the initially admiring warden (actually a colonel, played by Soprano James Gandolfini), and he winds up doing hard labor — going shirtless to reveal a sinewy and sculpted bod — while professing he’s “just another inmate.” Right. Then a super uous stuttering simpleton dies, and Redford leads the inmates in an insurrection that’s executed with military precision.

Critic-turned-director Rod Lurie has embarked on a career of smug political deconstruction, and here, as in The Contender, he challenges the system while waving the flag. But Redford is miscast — he’s too humane to be a “warrior’s warrior” and leader of legions. Delroy Lindo as a general formerly under Redford’s command and Mark Ruffalo as the prison-yard snitch are pluses, but the film’s hyperbole lays siege to this castle.

— Tom Meek