Cool Hand Luke

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Cinema is the gift that keeps on giving. I find this more and more as I delve deeper into the golden history of one of man’s most popular mediums and keep coming across films that continue to thrive, shock, and empower even though they were made in a totally different time. Today’s gift was Cool Hand Luke.

For a modern audience, if you can imagine Rebel Without a Cause mixed with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest set on a chain gang, then you’ve got Cool Hand Luke. Paul Newman in one of his most iconic roles stars as a wayward man incarcerated for destruction of municipal property and set to work on a chain gang where his charismatic loner personality butts heads with a whole new set of rules and regulations.

There is a distinct absence of any real story in this film, but honestly that’s part of its charm. Newman’s piercing stare and charismatic presence are quite literally enough to carry the film along, cobbling together a semi-engaging antiauthoritarian story that somehow winds up being an unfinished Christ allegory. Regardless, total support for Luke comes with reel one and escalates right until the film’s beautiful, but tragic ending. Newman's Oscar-nominated performance coupled with other memorable ones from George Kennedy (who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor) and Strother Martin who gave us that iconic line, "what we have here is failure to communicate", are what make this movie truly remarkable. 

Image credit: The Movie Bucket List

Director Stuart Rosenberg’s choice to film in impressive wide shots and extreme close-ups proves to still make eyes widen and hearts skip a beat and his favour towards harsh lighting and gritty, dusty, sweaty filters gives the film a wonderful authenticity, though this could also be due in part to co-author Donn Pearce’s own experiences on a chain gang. The script is punchy and poignant and one can see where other iconic works have borrowed from this masterpiece: The Shawshank Redemption and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for example.

While chain gang films are a genre that has more or less gone the way of the dodo, the magnificent thing about movies is that we can go back in time and revisit such interesting and important genre gems like this one, and I would recommend that people do!

Director: Stuart Rosenberg, 1967

Cast: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, J.D. Cannon, Lou Antonio, Robert Drivas, Strother Martin, Jo Van Fleet, Clifton James, Morgan Woodward, Luke Askew, Marc Cavell, Richard Davalos, Robert Donner, Warren Finnerty, Dennis Hopper, and Harry Dean Stanton