Published via Ecency

(source: tmdb.org)

Americans like to describe their country as Land of the Free, but one of four of all incarcerated people in the world is incarcerated in United States. This state of affairs played its part in helping Hollywood to develop prison drama genre, with 1967 Cool Hand Luke being one of its classics. Thirteen years later its director Stuart Rosenberg returned to those themes with his film Brubaker.

The plot begins with the protagonists, played by Robert Redford, starting to serve his sentence at the Wakefield prison farm in one of Southern states. He mostly keeps to himself but keenly observes what is going on, and nothing he observes is good. Despite working on rich agricultural land, prisoners are starving and often forced to sell their blood in order to obtain food, while at the same time being under constant threat of vicious physical and sexual abuse. The most peculiar thing about Wakefield is that there are hardly any guards in the prisons; their work is instead done by trustees – prisoners who maintain discipline in exchange for various privileges, and some are even given guns to shoot anyone trying to escape. Protagonist tries to stay away from trouble, but one incident involving crazed inmate (played by Morgan Freeman) forces him to reveal his identity as Henry Brubaker, newly appointed warden who deliberately arrived as a convict in order to see conditions from another perspective. Armed with such knowledge, Brubaker begins an ambitious programme of prison reform which includes abolition of physical punishment and attempts to provide decent food, living condition and medical care for prisoners. His policies gradually win over the prisoners, even the cynical Dickie Coombes (played by Yaphet Kotto). It is quite another matter with corrupt guards and trustees, officials who embezzled prison funds and local businessmen who enjoyed cheap food and slave labour from the farm. Brubaker begins to step on too many toes and in the end his attempt to dig out possible mass grave of murdered prisons proves too much for his superiors and even his allies within the state administration.

The film is based on the real life story of Thomas Murton, penologist who in late 1960s attempted to reform Arkansas prison system and later described his experiences in best-selling book. In many ways, Brubaker is typical of the age when Hollywood tried to promote liberal and progressive views in serious films about serious issues instead of trying to shove it down audience’s throat in regular blockbusters as it does today. Robert Redford looked like a sensible choice for the title role, because he was just in the middle of transformation from New Hollywood superstar into serious, politically active film author which many of today’s virtue signalling celebrities aspire to be. He can play dedicated reform-minded idealists in his sleep, and his name on the poster undoubtedly helped this film at the box office. But he couldn’t overcome some problems with the script, which tries a little bit too hard to transform rather dark story with downbeat ending (as it happened in real life) into some kind of uplifting drama that restores faith in humanity. Even more problematic is seemingly ingenious gimmick of Brubaker impersonating a convict in the first part of the film. Someone with Redford’s looks is being unlikely not to cause attention among population of sex-starved convicts, so the viewers would have to suspend their disbelief more than usual. This part of film nevertheless works, because abuse looks more terrible and corruption more shocking when seen from convicts’ point of view. When the plot twist happens and the protagonist turns out to be person of actual authority, much of this impact is lost. Instead of struggle for survival we see series of political intrigues and characters, Redford included, mostly deliver boring sermons. Rosenberg appears to be aware of the problems, so he tries to spice things up with the scene featuring exploitation film actress Linda Haynes appearing topless or the western-style gunfight near the end. Despite the good cast, the general result is incoherent and overlong film that disappoints despite its authors having the heart in the right place.

RATING: 5/10 (++)