James Gandolfini plays the sadistic military prison commandant Colonel Winter in which 2001 film starring Robert Redford?
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Robert Redford The Last Castle
Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936)  is an American actor, director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, and philanthropist. Redford is the founder of the Sundance Film Festival. 

Redford's career began in 1960 as a guest star on numerous TV programs, including: The Untouchables, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone, among others. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). His greatest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).

Redford made his film debut in War Hunt (1962). His role in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) won him a Golden Globe for best new star. He starred in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), which was a huge success and made him a major star. In 1972, he had a critical and box office hit with Jeremiah Johnson (1972), and in 1973 had the greatest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976) was a landmark film for Redford.

The first film that Redford directed, Ordinary People (1980), was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars, and in the same year, he starred in Brubaker (1980). He starred in Out of Africa (1985), which was an enormous critical and box office success, and won seven Oscars including Best Picture, proving to be his greatest success of the decade. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992. 

Redford won the Academy Award for Best Director in 1981 for directing Ordinary People. He was previously nominated Best Actor in 1974 for his performance in The Sting, and went on to receive Best Director and Best Picture nominations in 1995 for Quiz Show. He won a second Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. In 2010, he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He has won BAFTA, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

In April 2014, Time Magazine included Redford in their annual TIME 100 as one of the "Most Influential People in the World", declaring him the "Godfather of Indie Film".  

Early life 

Redford was born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California. His mother, Martha W. (; 1914–55), was born in Texas, to Archibald Hart and Sallie Pate Green; and his father, Charles Robert Redford, Sr. (1914–91),  was a milkman-turned-accountant from Pawcatuck, New London County, Connecticut,   son of Charles Elijah Redford and Lena Taylor.    He has a stepbrother,Stated on Inside the Actors Studio, 2005 William, from his father's remarriage. Redford is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Scots-Irish ancestry (his surname originates in England).    

Redford's family moved to Van Nuys, California, while his father worked in El Segundo. He attended Van Nuys High School, where he was classmates with baseball player Don Drysdale. He has described himself as having been a "bad" student, finding inspiration outside the classroom, and being interested in art and sports. He hit tennis balls with Pancho Gonzales at the Los Angeles Tennis Club to warm him up.

After graduating from high school in 1954,  he attended the University of Colorado for a year and a half, where he was a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity.  While there, he worked at the restaurant/bar The Sink; a painting of his likeness is prominent in the bar's murals.  While at Colorado, Redford began drinking heavily, and as a result lost his scholarship and was kicked out of school.  Later he traveled in Europe, living in France, Spain, and Italy. He later studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and took classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

Career 

Television 

Redford's career—like that of almost all major stars who emerged in the 1950s—began in New York, where an actor could find work both in television and on stage. Starting in 1959, he appeared as a guest star on numerous programs, including Naked City, The Untouchables, The Americans, Whispering Smith, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Playhouse 90, Tate,  The Twilight Zone, and "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" with a young Christopher Plummer, among others.

In 1960, Redford was cast as Danny Tilford, a mentally disturbed young man trapped in the wreckage of his family garage, in "Breakdown", one of the last episodes of the syndicated adventure series, Rescue 8, starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries.

Redford earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (ABC, 1962). One of his last television appearances was on October 7, 1963, on Breaking Point, an ABC medical drama about psychiatry.

Theater 

Redford's Broadway debut was in a small role in Tall Story (1959), followed by parts in The Highest Tree (1959) and Sunday in New York (1961). His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).

Film 

Redford made his screen debut in Tall Story (1960). It was a minor role. The stars of the film were Anthony Perkins, Jane Fonda (her debut), and Ray Walston. The film was about a college basketball star, played by Perkins, who gets himself into trouble debating as to whether or not he should accept a bribe to throw a basketball game against a team from Russia. After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies. In 1962 Robert Redford got his second film role in War Hunt. He was cast alongside screen legend Alec Guinness in the war comedy Situation Hopeless ... But Not Serious, in which he played a soldier who has to spend years of his life hiding behind enemy lines. In Inside Daisy Clover (1965), which won him a Golden Globe for best new star, he played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood, and rejoined her along with Charles Bronson for Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966)—again as her lover, though this time in a film which achieved even greater success. The same year saw his first teaming (on equal footing) with Jane Fonda, in Arthur Penn's The Chase. This film marked the only time Redford would star with Marlon Brando. Fonda and Redford were paired again in the popular big-screen version of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and were again co-stars much later in Pollack's The Electric Horseman (1979).

After this initial success, Redford became concerned about his blond male stereotype image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate.  Redford found the niche he was looking for in George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), scripted by William Goldman, in which he was paired for the first time with Paul Newman. The film was a huge success and made him a major bankable star, cementing his screen image as an intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy.

Redford suffered through a few films that did not achieve box office success during this time, including Downhill Racer (1969); Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969); Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970), and The Hot Rock (1972). But his overall career was flourishing with the critical and box office hit Jeremiah Johnson (1972); the political satire The Candidate (1972); the hugely popular period drama The Way We Were (1973); and the biggest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting (1973), which became one of the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time when adjusted for inflation and for which he was also nominated for an Oscar.

Between 1974 and 1976, exhibitors voted Redford Hollywood's top box-office name.  His hits included The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and Three Days of the Condor (1975). The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976), directed by Alan J. Pakula and scripted once again by Goldman, was a landmark film for Redford. Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter—the Watergate scandal—and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism, also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes.

He also appeared in a segment of the war film A Bridge Too Far (1977) before starring in the prison drama Brubaker (1980), playing a prison warden attempting to reform the system, and the baseball drama The Natural (1984). Redford continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies, though with a newfound focus on directing. The first film he directed, Ordinary People, which followed the disintegration of an upper-class American family after the death of a son, was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars, including Best Director for Redford himself, and Best Picture. His follow-up directorial project, The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), failed to generate the same level of attention. Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1985), with Redford in the male lead role opposite Meryl Streep, became an enormous critical and box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture, proving to be Redford's biggest success of the decade and Redford and Pollack's most successful of their six movies together. His next film, Legal Eagles (1986), was only a minor success at the box office.

Redford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992, which was a return to mainstream success for Redford as a director and brought a young Brad Pitt to greater prominence. In 1993, Redford played what became one of his most popular and recognized roles, starring in Indecent Proposal as a millionaire businessman who tests a couple's morals; the film became one of the year's biggest hits. He co-starred with Michelle Pfeiffer in the newsroom romance Up Close & Personal (1996), and with Kristin Scott Thomas in The Horse Whisperer (1998), which he also directed. Redford also continued work in films with political context, such as Havana (1990), playing Jack Weil, a professional gambler in 1959 Cuba during the Revolution, as well as Sneakers (1992), in which he co starred with River Phoenix among others.

He appeared as a disgraced Army general sent to prison in the prison drama The Last Castle (2001), directed by Rod Lurie. In the same year, Redford reteamed with Brad Pitt for Spy Game, another success for the pair but with Redford switching this time from director to actor. Redford, a leading environmental activist, narrated the IMAX documentary Sacred Planet (2004), a sweeping journey across the globe to some of its most exotic and endangered places. In The Clearing (2004), a thriller co-starring Helen Mirren, Redford was a successful businessman whose kidnapping unearths the secrets and inadequacies that led to his achieving the American Dream.

Redford stepped back into producing with The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), a coming-of-age road film about a young medical student, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, and his friend Alberto Granado.  It also explored political and social issues of South America that influenced Guevara and shaped his future.  With five years spent on the film's making, Redford was credited by director Walter Salles for being instrumental in getting it made and released.

Back in front of the camera, Redford received good notices for his role in director Lasse Hallstrom's An Unfinished Life (2005) as a cantankerous rancher who is forced to take in his estranged daughter-in-law (Jennifer Lopez)—whom he blames for his son's death—and the granddaughter he never knew he had when they fled an abusive relationship.  The film, which sat on the shelf for many months while its distributor Miramax was restructured, was generally dismissed as clichéd and overly sentimental. Meanwhile, Redford returned to familiar territory when he reteamed with Meryl Streep 22 years after they starred in Out of Africa, for his personal project Lions for Lambs (2007), which also starred fellow superstar Tom Cruise. After a great deal of hype, the film opened to mixed reviews and disappointing box office. Redford more recently signed on to direct and star in an update of The Candidate.

Redford appeared in the 2011 documentary Buck, where he discussed his experiences with title subject Buck Brannaman during the production of The Horse Whisperer.  In 2012, Redford directed and starred in The Company You Keep, about a former Weather Underground activist who goes on the run from a journalist who has discovered his identity.  In 2013, he starred in All Is Lost, directed by J.C. Chandor, about a man lost at sea. He received very high acclaim for his performance in the film, in which he is its only cast member and there is almost no dialogue.  In April 2014, Redford appeared in the Marvel Studios super hero film Captain America: The Winter Soldier playing Alexander Pierce, the main antagonist who is the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. and leader of the HYDRA cell operating the Triskelion. 

Director 

Redford had long harbored ambitions to work on both sides of the camera.  As early as 1969, Redford had served as the executive producer for Downhill Racer. His first outing as director was 1980's Best Picture winner Ordinary People, a drama about the slow disintegration of an upper-middle class family, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director. Redford was credited with obtaining a powerful dramatic performance from Mary Tyler Moore, as well as superb work from Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton, who also won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Redford did not direct again until The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), a well-crafted, though not commercially successful, screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest. The Milagro Beanfield War is the story of the people of Milagro, New Mexico (based on the real town of Truchas in northern New Mexico), overcoming big developers who set about to ruin their community and force them out because of tax increases.  Other directorial projects have included the period drama A River Runs Through It (1992), based on Norman Maclean's novella, and the exposé Quiz Show (1994), about the quiz show scandal of the late 1950s. In the latter film, Redford worked from a screenplay by Paul Attanasio with noted cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and a strong cast that featured Paul Scofield, John Turturro, Rob Morrow, and Ralph Fiennes. Redford handpicked Morrow for his part in the film (Morrow's only high-profile feature film role to date), because he liked his work on Northern Exposure.  Redford also directed Matt Damon and Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000). In 2010, Redford released The Conspirator, a period drama revolving around the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Despite a subject matter of personal interest to Redford, the film received mixed reviews and proved to be a flop at the box office.

Honors 

Redford attended the University of Colorado in the 1950s and received an honorary degree in 1988.

In 1989, the National Audubon Society awarded Redford its highest honor, the Audubon Medal. 

In 1995, he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Bard College. He was a 2002 Lifetime Achievement Award/Honorary Oscar recipient at the 74th Academy Awards. 

In 1996, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. 

In December 2005, he received the Kennedy Center Honors for his contributions to American culture. The honors recipients are recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts: whether in dance, music, theater, opera, motion pictures or television. 

In 2008, he was awarded The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the richest prizes in the arts, given annually to "a man or woman who has made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind's enjoyment and understanding of life." 

The University of Southern California (USC) School of Dramatic Arts announced the first annual Robert Redford Award for Engaged Artists in 2009.  According to the school's web site, the award was created "to honor those who have distinguished themselves not only in the exemplary quality, skill and innovation of their work, but also in their public commitment to social responsibility, to increasing awareness of global issues and events, and to inspiring and empowering young people." 

Redford received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Brown University at the 240th Commencement exercises on May 25, 2008.   He also spoke during the ceremonies.

On October 14, 2010, he was appointed chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. 

He was a 2010 recipient of the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts 

On May 24, 2015, Redford delivered the [http://www.colby.edu/commencement/commencement-2015/ commencement address] and received an honorary degree from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. 

Sundance 

With the financial proceeds of his acting success, starting with his salaries from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Downhill Racer, Redford bought an entire ski area on the east side of Mount Timpanogos northeast of Provo, Utah, called "Timp Haven", which was renamed "Sundance". Redford's wife Lola was from Utah and they had built a home in the area in 1963. Portions of the movie Jeremiah Johnson (1972), a film which is both one of Redford's favorites and one that has heavily influenced him, were shot near the ski area. He founded the Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Catalog, and the Sundance Channel, all in and around Park City, Utah, 30 miles (48 km) north of the Sundance ski area.  The Sundance Film Festival caters to independent filmmakers in the United States and has received recognition from the industry as a place to open films. In 2008, Sundance exhibited 125 feature-length films from 34 countries, with more than 50,000 attendees.  The name Sundance comes from his Sundance Kid character.  Redford also owns a restaurant called Zoom, located on Main Street in the former mining town of Park City.

Independent films 

Since founding the nonprofit Sundance Institute in Park City, in 1981, Redford has been deeply involved with independent film. Through its various workshop programs and popular film festival, Sundance has provided much-needed support for independent filmmakers. In 1995, Redford signed a deal with Showtime to start a 24-hour cable television channel devoted to airing independent films. The Sundance Channel premiered on February 29, 1996.

Personal life 

On September 12, 1958, in Las Vegas, Nevada, Redford married Lola Van Wagenen, who dropped out of college to marry him. They had four children: Scott Anthony (September 1, 1959 - November 17, 1959), Shauna Jean  (born November 15, 1960), David James ("Jamie") (born May 5, 1962), and Amy Hart Redford (born October 22, 1970). Lola and Redford divorced in 1985.

Scott Redford was born on September 1, 1959, and died of sudden infant death syndrome on November 17, 1959, at the age of 2½ months. His remains were buried at Provo City Cemetery in Provo, Utah. Shauna Redford is a painter and married to journalist Eric Schlosser. Jamie Redford is a writer and producer, while Amy Redford is an actress, director, and producer. In 1994 Jamie, suffering from liver disease, had a liver transplant.    
Redford has seven grandchildren. 

In July 2009, Redford married his longtime partner, Sibylle Szaggars, at the Louis C. Jacob Hotel in Hamburg, Germany. She had moved in with Redford in the 1990s and shares his home in Sundance, Utah. 

In May 2011, Alfred A. Knopf published Robert Redford: The Biography by Michael Feeney Callan, written over fifteen years with Redford's input and drawn from his personal papers and diaries.

Political activity 

Redford supports environmentalism, Native American rights, LGBT rights,  and the arts.  He has also supported advocacy groups, such as the Political Action Committee of the Directors Guild of America.[http://www.newsmeat.com/celebrity_political_donations/Robert_Redford.php Robert Redford's Federal campaign contributions]. Newsmeat.com Redford has on occasion also supported Republicans, including Brent Cornell Morris in his unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination for Utah's 3rd congressional district in 1990.  Redford also supported Gary Herbert, another Republican and a friend, in Herbert's successful 2004 campaign to be elected Utah's Lieutenant Governor. Herbert later became Governor of Utah.  Redford is an avid environmentalist and is a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He endorsed Democratic President Barack Obama for re-election in 2012.  Redford is the first quote on the back cover of Donald Trump's book "Crippled America" saying of Trump “I’m glad he’s in there because him being the way he is, and saying what he says the way he says it, I think shakes things up and I think that’s very needed."  

In April 2014, Redford, a Pitzer College Trustee, and Pitzer College President Laura Skandera Trombley announced that the college will divest fossil fuel stocks from its endowment; at the time, it was the higher education institution with the largest endowment in the US to make this commitment. The press conference was held at the LA Press Club.   In November 2012, Pitzer launched the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability at Pitzer College. The Redford Conservancy educates the next generation of students to create solutions for the most challenging and urgent sustainability problems.

Filmography 

Actor 

Director 

Narrator The Last Castle is a 2001 American action drama film directed by Rod Lurie, starring Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo and Delroy Lindo.

The film portrays a struggle between inmates and the warden of a military prison, based on the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.  A highly decorated U.S. Army Lieutenant General, court martialed and sentenced for insubordination, challenges the prison commandant, a colonel, over his treatment of the prisoners. After mobilizing the inmates, the former general leads an uprising aiming to seize control of the prison.

The film was released in the United States on October 19, 2001, to mixed reviews and grossed $27.6 million worldwide.

Plot

Lieutenant General Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford) is brought to a maximum security military prison to begin a ten-year sentence for his decision (in violation of a presidential order) to send U.S. troops on a mission in Burundi, resulting in the deaths of eight soldiers. Colonel Winter (James Gandolfini), the prison's commandant, is a great admirer of the general but is offended by a comment he overhears: Irwin criticizes Winter's much-prized military artifacts collection, calling it something no actual battlefield veteran would ever have.

Winter, who has never seen combat, resents the remark. He then takes exception to what he perceives as Irwin's attempt to change the attitudes of the prisoners, his admiration for Irwin fading fast. On one occasion, Irwin is punished harshly after stopping a guard from clubbing a prisoner, Corporal Ramon Aguilar (Clifton Collins, Jr.), who had made the mistake of saluting Irwin in the prison yard.

Continuing to observe acts of cruelty, Irwin attempts to unify the prisoners by building a "castle wall" of stone and mortar at the facility, which in many ways resembles a medieval castle. Envying the respect Irwin is clearly receiving, Winter orders his guards to destroy the wall. Aguilar, directly involved in its construction, takes a stand before the bulldozer. Winter orders a sharpshooter with a coded hand gesture to fire a normally non-lethal rubber bullet directly at Aguilar's head, killing him.

After the wall is destroyed, Irwin and the inmates pay final respects to Aguilar in formation. Winter later tries to make amends with Irwin, who calls him a disgrace to the uniform and demands his resignation.

The prisoners begin to behave like soldiers around Irwin, using code words and gestures, infuriating the commandant. Winter reaches out to an anti-social prisoner named Yates (Mark Ruffalo), a former officer and Apache helicopter pilot convicted of running a drug-smuggling ring. Yates is bribed to inform about Irwin's plans in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Irwin organizes a plot to throw the prison into chaos. His intent is to show a friend, Brigadier General Wheeler (Delroy Lindo), the commandant's superior officer, that the commandant is unfit and should be removed from command under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. During a visit, Winter receives a letter threatening the kidnapping of General Wheeler by the prisoners. After ordering his men into action, Winter discovers that the scheme was a fake orchestrated by Irwin to detect how prison guards would react during an actual uprising.

Yates steals a U.S. flag from the warden's office and seizes a helicopter used by guards.

Using improvised weapons the prisoners capture an armored vehicle and the helicopter. The prisoners place a call to Wheeler's headquarters and inform him of the riot. Winter has little time to regain control before Wheeler will arrive to see the prison under siege, so orders the use of live ammunition against the prisoners.

Winter knows from Yates that Irwin's ultimate goal is to raise the American flag upside down, a classic signal of distress. Irwin's men create havoc but ultimately are confronted by overwhelming numbers of guards, armed with live ammunition. Irwin orders the prisoners to stand down and elects to personally hoist the flag. Winter shoots Irwin, fatally.

Peretz places the Colonel under arrest for the shooting of Irwin. The prisoners salute the flag and Winter now sees that Irwin has actually raised the flag in the correct manner. It flies above the prison's walls as General Wheeler arrives.  Colonel Winter is led away in handcuffs. The inmates build a new wall as memorial to their fallen comrades. Aguilar and Irwin's names are among those carved onto the castle's wall.

Cast

* Robert Redford as Lieutenant General Eugene Irwin
* James Gandolfini as Colonel Winter
* Mark Ruffalo as Yates
* Delroy Lindo as Brigadier General Wheeler
* Steve Burton as Captain Peretz
* Paul Calderón as Sergeant Major Dellwo
* Clifton Collins, Jr. as Corporal Aguilar
* Robin Wright (uncredited) as Rosalie Irwin, the general's daughter

Production

The film was shot mainly at the 103-year-old former Tennessee State Prison in Nashville, which had previously been used for filming in The Green Mile and Last Dance, and was chosen because of its Gothic and castle-like appearance. The state of Tennessee offered to provide the location rent-free, with exemption from the state's 6 percent state sales tax.  James Gandolfini earned $5 million for co-starring in the film after finishing the third season of The Sopranos in March 2001. 

A crew of 150 worked on refurbishing existing buildings and constructing new buildings in a time limit of nine weeks. A wall 61 m long and 6 m high was built, serving as the prison's entrance. A metal walkway and two towers were also built as vantage points for the guards. The film required an office with a large window through which the warden could watch the inmates; this was constructed by the production crew. Director Rod Lurie insisted on having the prisoners' cells face each other, but this is not the case at the Tennessee State Prison. To solve the problem, production designer Kirk Petruccelli created cells in a warehouse near the prison. 

Cinematography

To show the balance of power, the film crew used multiple cinematography techniques involving different displays of color, lighting, camera and costumes. In the warden's office intense color was used to reflect freedom or power, in contrast to the washed-out colors from the less powerful yard. The contrasts shift as the story progresses, showing the increasing power of the prisoners. The American flag in the yard is described by Petruccelli as "the heart of The Castle" and is the only exemption to the washed-out color palette.

Cinematographer Shelly Johnson, in collaboration with director Lurie and the design team, also used lighting and camerawork to signify the shifting of powers. For example, the yard is at first naturally lit and more influenced by daylight, in contrast to Winter's office, which is artificially illuminated by lamps. As the film progresses, the office is more fully infiltrated by exterior light through a broken window. The shift of power is also emphasized through camera techniques. Hand-held cameras were used when filming in the yard to make the audience feel as if they were "participants in the action". However, a very precise, sterile camera composition was used in the warden's office. The prisoners' world gets more precise during the film, while the colonel's world is filmed more loosely.

Costume designer Ha Nguyen also demonstrates this contrast in the clothing of the cast. The film starts with the prisoners having their clothing divided by ethnicity, with African Americans wearing different headwear, Latinos wearing vests and various arm accessories, and the White Americans in cut-off t-shirts. After the arrival of General Irwin, the prisoners start wearing more similar clothing in a "sharp military manner". The uniforms of the prisoners change from the usual chocolate brown color to light grey, because of its muddled look on film and excessive darkness in some scenes. Ha Nguyen also contrasted the non-battlefield ribbons found on Colonel Winter's uniform with the battlefield medals found on General Irwin's uniform (seen only in the opening scene as Irwin is inducted into the prison).

The wall created by the prisoners in the middle of the yard also represents change and incarnation. What is at first a "discombobulated mess" representing the lack of unity among prisoners later becomes a perfect wall, a "powerful symbol of the results of [Irwin's] leadership".

Effects

Special effects supervisor Burt Dalton and stunt coordinator Mic Rodger created the battle weapons used in the final scenes. The trebuchet, used by prisoners to throw rocks, was capable of throwing a 68 kg rock a distance of 60 m with an accuracy of ten feet around the target. The water cannon had the power to shoot 76 L of water per second. Some of the cast did their own stunts, including Mark Ruffalo, who performed one scene hanging from a helicopter. Interiors of the helicopter were not created with blue screen effects; instead, a special gimbal was used to hold a full-sized Huey-A type military helicopter. The gimbal was capable of rotating the helicopter 360 degrees and vertically moving it 20 feet. The gimbal was controlled by a computer, allowing Dalton to precisely set speed and movement; this ensured precise repeatability for multiple takes. 

Release

Prior to release, DreamWorks pulled the original  poster from circulation, which depicted an American flag flying upside down (a standard distress call), due to concerns about public sensitivity related to the September 11 attacks.  

The film was released on October 19, 2001, in 2,262 North American theaters, grossing $7,088,213 on its opening weekend with an average of $3,133 per theater. The release spanned 63 days (9 weeks), closing on December 20, 2001, with a total domestic gross of $18,244,060. The film grossed $9,398,647 overseas, with the lowest earning in Egypt ($5,954) and the highest ($1,410,528) in Germany. 

Reception

The Last Castle received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a rating of 52%, based on 113 reviews, with an average rating of 5.6/10. The site's critical consensus, "The Last Castle is well acted and rousing for the most part, but the story cannot stand up to close scrutiny."  At Metacritic, a rating website which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 42 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". 

Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned the cast, describing Redford as "no George C. Scott" and Gandolfini as an unusual choice to play an icy intellectual. LaSalle stated that "'The Last Castle', on the surface, seems like a naive film about a great leader's capacity to inspire", but at closer look "seems to mean one thing but means another upon reflection". In general, LaSalle is in favour of the movie. 

Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times saw it as "a dramatic, involving story" but criticized its "loopholes and lapses." Ebert noted that Irwin is no less evil than Winter and that they both "delight in manipulating those they can control."  He pointed out that the film fails to portray how the prisoners manufacture the weapons and hide them under Winter's observation. 

It received 3 out of 5 stars on IGN; the review noted that though a well paced and well acted film, it "suffers from this overall militaristic, streamlined approach." 

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said the film's "pretensions lead to a slow, even stately pace, what should be crackling confrontations between Irwin and Winter end up playing more like a tea party than a Wagnerian battle of wills." 

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a "C-plus" grade, writing: "As staged by Lurie, the drama has all the subtlety and surprise of a showdown between the sissy-bully son of Captain Queeg and a hero who's like a fusion of Brubaker, Spartacus, and Norma Rae." 

Variety wrote: "Much of the potential dramatic juice has been drained out of The Last Castle, a disappointingly pedestrian prison meller that falls between stools artistically and politically." 

Claudia Puig of USA Today criticized the writing, citing "a losing battle with an implausible script." 

Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times wrote: "The movie is exuberant, strapping and obvious—a problem drama suffering from a steroid overdose." 

Accolades

The Last Castle won the Taurus World Stunt Award for best fire stunt and was nominated for best aerial work and best stunt coordination sequence.  Clifton Collins, Jr. was nominated for an ALMA Award in the "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture" category.
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