Cool Hand Luke

"What we have here is Failure to Communicate" is one the most classic lines in film history. I, like many others never knew its origin until I watched Cool Hand Luke for the first time. What I didn't expect was the high pitched voice in which it is delivered. Not a joke or anything like that, just the actors voice. My ignorant brother had that memorable quote as his voicemail message. When I laughed and said I loved that movie, he looked confused. Movie? he said. That's off a Guns n Roses album. Sorry Mitch, you're an idiot. To think

G N R could ever come up with anything that epic is asinine. Back to the film. The legend Paul Newman is Luke Jackson. Luke is a thug who ends up in a southern work camp prison run by a man called only by the name "Captain" (Strother Martin) who is excellent at what he does. What does he do you ask? He conforms prisoners to be good in society. Luke is his biggest challenge. Luke is the cocky, arrogant, "I wanted to get caught" type of man. This is the most brutal of prison systems. Men work all day in the southern heat, eat, and go to bed only to repeat the process 7 hours later. Luke immediately earns a reputation for bucking the system. He will not let "the man" keep him down. He takes orders form no one and accepts any challenge thrown at him. This includes one of the most awful sounding challenges I have ever heard about. Eat 100 hard boiled eggs in 1 hour or less (not even Fuller could do that). If the challenge itself isn't bad enough, he has to do it outside in the 100 degree heat. Luke is a man's man which is why he does so well in that system. Since he will not admit wrong doing, and therefore conforming is out of the question, he does the only thing that makes sense at the time. Escape. He escapes rather easily, but is also caught and brought back rather quickly. At first he just makes a run for it, but after being found and brought back several times only to go in the box (A metal box with no windows that I assume would triple the outside temperature) as punishment he starts being more thoughtful of his plans. Doesn't help though. The young punk never learns his lesson and Captain begins to become perturbed. He absolutely is not gonna let Luke get the best of him, but his bigger worry is how revved up he gets the other inmates. It's basically a tale of who will win? Luke or Captain? A brilliant classic film that will make anyone a Newman fan if they aren't yet already.

NBM rates Cool Hand Luke - A Cinematic Work of Art

Buy It Now!!