Film Review: Cool Hand Luke (1967) (Patreon)

IMDB 

Cool Hand Luke is directed by Stuart Rosenberg and stars Paul Newman as Luke, a man sent to a prison camp for 2 years because of a misdemeanor. During his time on the chain gang, Luke builds himself a reputation as a ‘cool’ guy who lives by his own authority and refuses to conform to the rules that are given to him. An idol to his fellow prisoners, a thorn in the eye of his jailors; the film follows Luke’s seemingly unbreakable spirit as he shakes up life in prison, messes around with the other prisoners and attempts to escape multiple times.

I clearly remember watching this film for the first time a couple of years ago and being amazed at how modern it felt, I had such a blast with it which was quite a surprise to me as I was just getting into older films and up until that point I watched most of them with the attitude of ‘that was a good film… for its time’. Cool Hand Luke however was just pure fun from beginning to end and really connected with me; I saw it as the Shawshank Redemption before The Shawshank Redemption; a great story about the human spirit that has some great performances, obviously Paul Newman as Luke is incredible but George Kennedy as the supporting character Dragline also deserves credit.

I especially liked how there are some interesting parallels to be drawn between Cool Hand Luke and the New Testament, with Luke being a Jesus-like character. There is some obvious symbolism as Luke at one point lies down on a table and resembles Jesus at the cross, but there are also more subtle connections such as a scene where Luke and his fellow prisoners have to tar a road. When he is told to pick up the pace, he does so and then some; he riles up the others and together they work like crazy to finish the task way ahead of schedule, leaving them with a couple of extra hours of daylight to, in Luke’s words, do absolutely nothing. The scene is one of my favorites from the film and always reminded me of the quote from the Gospel of Matthew: “And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.” To me, it’s always been a great sign of willpower and spirit, and I love how Cool Hand Luke manages to implement it in such a creative way that hardly needs any exposition or explanation. 

What I believe really elevates Cool Hand Luke to the status of greatness is that they also showed his vulnerabilities and the consequences of the way the others started to idolize him later in the film. It just gives the entire story an extra layer of meaning and thoughtfulness that makes it worth revisiting again and again.   

This was my brief review of Cool Hand Luke. If you haven’t seen the film, I hope you’ll get a chance to check it out. If you have, please let me know your thoughts on it in the comments below (but please be mindful of spoilers)!