Cool Hand Luke

Anti Establishment

This would probably be one of the first "anti establishment" films to be released. I believe that it is also the movie that coined the term "What we've got here is failure to communicate". It doesn't have the happy ending that most Hollywood movies do.



This movie is based in a prison in the Southern parts of America. Luke ( Paul Newman) goes on a drunken spree of cutting parking meters from their poles. For his efforts he is sent to two years prison, which shouldn't be a problem for a war veteran. However, it would mean that he has to bow down to guards, and the informal peaking order of the other prisoners.

Thus begins the conflict, initially with other inmates, but he soon wins them as a symbol of hope and a person of integrity. The guards on the other hand can not have anyone threaten their rule. So they set out to break him through a combination of physical and mental abuse.

Nobody can last indefinitely, so in the end he is ultimately broken, and while we don't actually see him die it is inferred as the trip to the prison hospital is a fair way and he has been shot.