Cool Hand Luke (1967) * * *

Directed by: Stuart Rosenberg

Starring: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Strother Martin

Paul Newman plays Lucas Jackson, a prisoner on a chain gang who brings beatings upon himself after numerous escape attempts and running afoul of the prison's warden. Cool Hand Luke is violent and downbeat and its hero is more masochistic than the guards are sadistic. They give him beatings indeed, but in the beginning of the film, they seem to be rather accomodating to him and the other prisoners given the circumstances. Even the warden, played by Strother Martin, doesn't appear to be altogether unforgiving or sadistic until being pushed one too many times by Luke. He is the one who utters the famous line, "What we have here is failure to communicate." He is trying to get Luke's "head right" but it doesn't ever seem to work out that way. Mostly because Luke seems to have a death wish or a wish to get beaten savagely.

Not much is mentioned about why Luke thinks the way he does. He was imprisoned for knocking the tops off of mailboxes, as if he couldn't think of any other way to get himself into trouble, but get in trouble he does. What makes Cool Hand Luke unique is that there is no great injustice foisted upon its hero that he didn't practically beg for. He attempts to escape three times, but without any real plan of what to do next and halfway expecting to be brought back to prison. In the climactic scene in an old church, Luke talks to God and explains that he wasn't given much by God, but my guess is that even if he were given gifts, he would squander them.

Cool Hand Luke is not a film that really ever hits an emotional high note. It is steady in its pacing and doesn't make Luke out to be a misunderstood hero or a martyr to the unjust legal system. I understood him plenty and although I didn't side with the guards in their treatment of him, I can at least understand their motives. How much can one be pushed before pushing back? And I'm not talking about Luke either. He is the one doing the pushing, which is most unusual.

The film mostly works because Newman is able to play the antihero well, while George Kennedy (who won an Oscar for his performance here), first comes off as a yard bully but after beating the snot out of Luke in a fight (if that's what you want to call Kennedy knocking Luke down and Luke repeatedly getting up only to be knocked down again), he admires the toughness and resiliency of the man he terms, "Cool Hand Luke". The trouble is, these traits are hardly used for anything constructive by Luke.