Cool Hand Luke

Genre: Drama
Year of release: 1967
Director: Stuart Rosenberg

What we've got here ... is great movie. I first watched Cool Hand Luke when I was quite tired and near the end I somehow was struggling to stay awake, I watched it again today and really enjoyed it far more than I did the first time. Cool Hand Luke is quite complex and nobody yet has given me a straight answer to the meaning of all the symbolic connections between Jesus and Luke. Which I actually like makes people do some thinking.

Cool Hand Luke is about a rebel with no purpose, he gets locked up for screwing the heads of parking timers. He goes through his life looking for something wanting to find god but not seeing any signs to base his belief on. The acting in this is suburb a classic performance from Paul Newman epically along with everybody else. The depth of this movie is almost endless making each person decide on what he thinks certain things symbolize however even without picking up on this feature this movie is freaking awesome. Luke's character is one of the best and a person could go absolutely crazy trying to figure him out completely.

Luke is a rebel, he does not seem to care about anything anyone and seems to do what he does with certainty and no plan. I believe the point of this movie is that Luke helped the prisoners with what appears to be a cool hand, almost nothing, just like he did in the game of cards, however "some times nothing can be a real cool hand". He helps the prisoners like how Jesus helped the world, Jesus from the outside appears to be nothing he appears to be the son of a carpenter, but is not, he was born in a stable he turned the world and their expectations upside down e.g the first people to see the King of the world were shepherd's considered especially at the time to be the lowest of the low yet Jesus wanted to prove what is in this world means nothing you can be rags or riches it is all the same and makes no difference in heaven. This theme is similar to Luke's character he shows us that having nothing can be everything and is almost to opposite of what the prisoners were expecting. Luke changes people through his unpredictable actions that go against what people expect, just like Jesus, he said thing that some times people needed to hear but did not want to, just like Jesus. Luke however did not seem to care about the in mates which goes against the idea of him resembling Christ. This is confusing and I can not understand except in the terms that god gave his only son to the world to help them, he was exactly what the people needed but in a prison things are different I believe in this film his uncaring actions were to show that God had sent him into the prison to help the in-mates in the exact way that would help them. If he had been caring and loving towards everybody I do not think that the inmates would have taken to him. They wanted to be liked by Luke because Luke didn't seem to like anybody. Also it separates us from the idea that Luke is Jesus which I do not believe is the point he is simply somebody who is similar to Jesus in the way that he helped others around him and God had sent him in for that purpose, and I think Luke finally sees that by the end. This paragraph probably isn't even right, but its fun to think about.

All the other characters in this movie even without the deep symbolic references were also quite awesome. I loved Dragline and all his bets, he was an enjoyable person who really cared about Luke and was quite humorous in his actions. His personality was cool, not greedy he just loved to make money and gamble with it. Dragline was a true follower to Luke and would always think highly of him like the disciples thought highly of Christ.

The thing I love about Cool Hand Luke is the very easy cool feeling you get when you watch it Luke just lives his life day by day cruising and makes the movie cruise not quite as well as is done in Taxi Driver but close. The story gets to extreme situations it is not like nothing happens but when the story really develops the story still remains nice and easy. It flows through the movie so perfectly.

In conclusion a great movie classic, great acting, awesome acting and possibly another dimension added into each simple flowing scene. Found it cool to see the famous line " What we've got here is failure to communicate ... ect" in Guns N' Roses song Civil War.

8.5-9/10