Review of Cool Hand Luke (1967) by Richard P — 29 Jan 2013

'Sometimes a handful of nothing is a real cool hand'.

This movie gives me something new on each viewing. In the opening scene we see Luke (Paul Newman) as a drunkard cutting the heads of parking meters who finds it rather amusing when the police come and arrest him.

He ends up on a chain gang and shortly after that has a fight with another, much bigger and stronger inmate who repeatedly knocks him to the ground. He keeps getting back up, even though he's beaten bloody and exhausted - this is central to the character played by Paul Newman in this movie.

He becomes the hero of his fellow inmates and to them is an almost Christ like figure of hope only to fall from this pedestal as it transpires he's only human after all as the prison guards force him into submission. However, in true 'Cool Hand' fashion, he doesn't stay submissive for long.

The film reflects the despair of a life without meaning, shows a man who, for rather silly actions, sinks to the bottom but glows so much while he's there he still seems like a winner and a hero to all those around him. Luke is a man who refuses to be beat all the while he is being beaten, it's a classic case of "the house always wins" but Luke smiles all the while that he's losing so much so that you wonder if the house really did win. It's a piece of poetic existentialism.