The Last Castle

As Colonel Winter, the weak-souled fascist warden of a maximum security military prison, James Gandolfini speaks in a softly robotic lisp that sounds like Tony Soprano minus New Jersey. Winter is set up against a new inmate, a three-star general (Robert Redford) who has recently been court-martialed. As staged by director Rod Lurie, The Last Castle is a grimly watchable yet sodden prison melodrama with 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.