Brubaker (1980) * *

Directed by:  Stuart Rosenberg

Starring:  Robert Redford, Yaphet Kotto, David Keith, Morgan Freeman, Matt Clark, Jane Alexander, Murray Hamilton

Robert Redford won a Best Director Oscar for the powerful and visceral Ordinary People in 1980.    He starred in Brubaker that same year, which could have easily been titled "Mr. Smith Goes to Prison".     Redford plays Henry Brubaker, the new warden at a rural Arkansas prison rife with corruption and rot.    The place is falling apart.    There are no guards, just prisoners who receive time off their sentences for keeping the other prisoners in line.    The reduced sentences are motivation enough for these prisoners to do their jobs, but naturally they are part of the corruption and perhaps murder that takes place within the prison's walls.  

Brubaker is a one-dimensional, rigid idealist who tries in vain to clean things up despite resistance from the very prison board that hired him.    The board isn't as interested in making the prison effective at recidivism as it is about making money.     The movie saw ahead to the times in which prisons came under private ownership and more or less became cash cows for the owners at the expense of the prisoners.     Brubaker believes in upping prisoner morale more than money, which causes clashes with the board's ideology.    

The movie never becomes stirring.    It is flat; lumbering from one disconnected scene to the next.    It never gathers momentum and we don't much care in the end when the prisoners salute the outgoing Brubaker with slowly growing applause.     It is an upbeat ending the movie hasn't earned, so we have little to be happy about.     The do-gooder is cast aside in favor of keeping the status quo.    What does the temporary prisoner uprising mean in the long run?    Not a lot.   

Brubaker, with its Oscar-nominated script by W.D. Richter, had potential to be a powerful look at prison corruption.    Or is it more of a "water is wet" story?; in which evil practices are uncovered much to no one's surprise.     Redford, with his natural star power, makes Henry Brubaker potentially more interesting than he actually is.     Brubaker pushes back against the corrupt establishment with only middling results for the prison and for us.   

As the movie opens, Brubaker (showing dedication to his job that goes well beyond reasonable expectations) enters the prison undercover as a prisoner to study the conditions there.     He soon reveals himself as the new warden and promises sweeping changes.     The prisoners in charge, including those played by Matt Clark and Yaphet Kotto, look at Brubaker likes he's crazy.     Brubaker's plan for change spins off in so many directions that we lose track of his strategy.    What is his plan?     Are we watching a movie or Donald Trump's presidency here?  

The characters played by Kotto and Keith, both prisoners who side with the warden, have moments where they express multiple dimensions.     If they were allowed to be fleshed out more, they could have provided a challenging dynamic.    But the movie focuses squarely on the warden himself.    Brubaker is written as an unbending instrument of change and morality.    He finds he is in the wrong profession to improve conditions from within.    But because he is so unyielding, he doesn't emerge as a real human being.    He is more of a symbol of ultimate good.    He is also kind of a bore.    As is the movie that bears his name.