Cool Hand Luke has been a movie I’ve wanted to watch ever since I heard John Cusack’s character Jonathan Trager talking about how amazing it was in Serendipity. As mentioned before, I’ve always loved Paul Newman and that stems from his performance in Slap Shot, one of the greatest sports movies ever. I only learnt of this film from another film, which could sum up why I ended up disliking it a lot. I’ve seen many movies about prisoners, including the TV show Prison Break, and got to say these guys don’t even compare in character development and hard times storyline. Why is “Cool Hand” Luke such a hero to these guys? He was more a loner who was selfish and confrontation than anything else. Never mind the fact this guy escapes like four times and always ends up back in the barracks. How stupid can you be? I was concerned that I was never actually gonna get invested in him or the overall story and nothing ever really happened for me to really care about the outcome. This film is considered one of the Top 250 highest rated movies of all-time and I want to know what others saw in the film that I didn’t. I think I enjoyed George Kennedy’s performance as the inmate who runs the place more than I did Paul Newman’s. Some silly stuff happens in the film and whether that is him trying to break the rules, make friends, or move the time along, there’s no definitive answer. I don’t want to apologize to those who love this film, but now I’ve seen it and probably wouldn’t invest my time to do it again. 3/10
Ten Stars or Less 