Friday, September 7, 2007

Cool Hand Luke (t)

2 stars
Vomit scenes: 0
Animal body count: 4
Good for black people: Apparently the only people of color in this southern town are very young boys.
Good for women: Women? Oh, you must mean those creatures that wax cars with their breasts and suck on garden hoses for the titillation of being ogled by a chain gang.

You know, I think I like this movie better when it's called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I was surprised at the comic overtones (and how they were summarily dropped), and thought the imagery was way heavy handed (opening violation sign and multiple crosses at the end, I'm looking at you). It was interesting that the movie suggests that the most effective form of resistance is that which only abuses one's own body (the prison fistfight, the eggs). I'm also not sure what to do with the end, where the naive but tough Drag is blithely spreading the Gospel of Luke (Heh. Just got that.) but wearing chains of his own. Is this movie profoundly nihilistic or just uneven? I did like the "Man with no eyes," though. It helps me love O Brother, Where Art Thou? on a whole new level.

1 comment:

natalie.leppard said...

Well, I do think it's uneven but I think I liked it at least a little better than you. I thought it was about Luke being able to give hope to the group of prisoners but he himself can't benefit from the same hope. Anyway, about the black people--there shouldn't have been any because prisons weren't desegregated until 68. Oh well, at least there was Paul Newman with his shirt off before he became a traitor.