I’ve thought about it for a while now and I’ve come to the conclusion that The Last Castle’s problems lie in its complete improbability. Nothing about the film screams plausibility, it’s ludicrousness from the get go. The biggest crime being that the rivalry between Winter and Irwin (the crux of the film) stems from Winter overhearing Irwin badmouth his military memorabilia collection. That’s right, Winter overhears this, takes it to heart and sets out to make Irwin’s life a misery. It’s about as lame a catalyst for a movie I can think off.

Moving on a bit we meet the obligatory simple inmate. The only difference (You should note that this is one of many prison movie clichés that pepper the film) is that this being a military prison the simple guy is an ex-marine. Now, I’m not overly familiar with the recruitment policy of the US Marine Core, but I find it incredibly hard to believe that a person with this guys obvious mental problems would be able to get within one hundred yards of being a Marine.

So Irwin befriends the simple inmate and gradually gains the respect and leadership of the prison populace. Again, I find this hard to believe. Yes, these are military inmates, but they are also criminals. The way we see them infighting in the opening moments of the film makes their new found camaraderie a bit of a stretch to swallow. Can one man really bring down racial boundaries and unite a bitter prison population so easily? Sorry, I’m not buying it.

And finally as Irwin tries to take the prison we are treated to a bunch of unarmed prison inmates taking over a prison staffed with highly trained (and armed) military personnel. Not only that, but capturing a helicopter and taking the guard towers at the same time, yeah, right. I’m all for the suspension of belief when watching a film, but the jumps that this film asks you to make are too far for a reality based movie.

It’s a bit of a shame that the entire story of The Last Castle doesn’t hold any water as director Rod Lurie has made a nice enough looking film. Long, swooping shots over the imposing prison are abundant (even if they reminded me constantly of The Shawshank Redemption). The ‘action’ scenes are filmed with handheld cameras and employ the same techniques as Saving Private Ryan to give a bit of a docummentary look to them.

Acting wise Robert Redford mails it in, he can do this kind of thing in his sleep and is never stretched. He should watch out because with this and his last film ‘Spy Game’, Redford is in danger of slipping into a rut of mediocrity. James Gandolfini is always a joy to watch whether it’s in The Soprano’s or in a movie, but he is hopelessly miscast here. He gives it a good go, but he just doesn’t feel right in this role. The rest of the cast is made up of unknowns and this movie really hasn’t inspired me to seek out any of their other work.