Brute Force

Rating:
Summary: Who knew Hume Cronyn could be so mean?
Review: After reading all of the reviews on here and other sites talking about the gritty realism and violence of this film I was very disappointed when I finally located a copy. I think that I AM A FUGITIVE OF A CHAIN GANG blows BRUTE FORCE out of the water. And it was made 15 years earlier in 1932!

Burt Lancaster and his cellmates keep knocking heads with Captain Monsey (played wonderfully by Hume Cronyn who steals the show) so finally after a revenge killing in the metal shop, a suicide and a handful of melodramatic flashbacks they lead a break-out/riot that doesn't go exactly as planned.

I like most of the scenes with Burt Lancaster (hell, he one of my favorite actors), but the stuff about the whiney warden and the softhearted doctor were killing me. Please this is supposed to be a prison movie. Then when they started in with the cellmate's flashbacks I couldn't help but roll my eyes - the tough guy in love with the girl in a wheelchair...spare me.

Like I said watch I AM A FUGITIVE OF A CHAIN GANG instead then afterwards lighten your spirits with Woody Allen's TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN. Or if you're looking for something more recent watch THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, PRISON ON FIRE or CARANDIRU.

D: Jules Dassin (THE NAKED CITY, RIFIFI)

Joe Collins - Burt Lancaster (SORRY, WRONG NUMBER, ELMER GANTRY)
Capt. Monsey -Hume Cronyn (BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED, COCOON)


Rating:
Summary: What happened with the closed caption subtitles?
Review: Brute Force is a surprisingly tough look at life in a prison, given the time when it was made. Burt Lancaster stars as an inmate who plans his escape to be with his critically ill girlfriend, Ann Blyth. He enlists the help of his cellmates and an older, experienced inmate, Charles Bickford. Standing in their way is a brutal, ambitious guard played very well by Hume Cronyn. There are a number of great scenes in the movie, including Cronyn's beating of an inmate to the sound of classical music, and the death in a giant press of an inmate that informed. The performances are good, the film moves at an excellent pace, and the ending surprised me somewhat, again given the time that it was made. Brute Force is a very good movie.

Rating:
Summary: A Dark Look At Prison Life
Review: Brute Force is a surprisingly tough look at life in a prison, given the time when it was made. Burt Lancaster stars as an inmate who plans his escape to be with his critically ill girlfriend, Ann Blyth. He enlists the help of his cellmates and an older, experienced inmate, Charles Bickford. Standing in their way is a brutal, ambitious guard played very well by Hume Cronyn. There are a number of great scenes in the movie, including Cronyn's beating of an inmate to the sound of classical music, and the death in a giant press of an inmate that informed. The performances are good, the film moves at an excellent pace, and the ending surprised me somewhat, again given the time that it was made. Brute Force is a very good movie.

Rating:
Summary: Intense and fraught with fear
Review: Burt Lancaster stars in this tough, grim noir-drenched prison flick, in which a sadistic prison guard (a young Hume Cronyn) manipulates tensions and weaknesses to produce an explosive situation. The film's liberal message butts up against its obligatory "crime never pays" ending; the convicts are sympathetic, but doomed from the word "go." A little stagey and lurid, but overall tense and suspenseful -- the ending is a real nail-biter. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Intense and fraught with fear
Review: Burt Lancaster stars in this tough, grim noir-drenched prison flick, in which a sadistic prison guard (a young Hume Cronyn) manipulates tensions and weaknesses to produce an explosive situation. The film's liberal message butts up against its obligatory "crime never pays" ending; the convicts are sympathetic, but doomed from the word "go." A little stagey and lurid, but overall tense and suspenseful -- the ending is a real nail-biter. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: What happened with the closed caption subtitles?
Review: Love this movie. A brilliant film by master Dassin! But this DVD was a gift for a deaf friend! Yeah... I know... I didn't read the cover guidelines. Anyway, I think one of the best things of DVD are the multiple languages or caption subtitles. Image must do something.

Rating:
Summary: Raining Force!
Review: The film opens in the pouring rain at a prison. The proceedings are advanced by an electric cast including Lancaster, Bickford, Cronin, John Hoyt, Whit Bissell, Art Smith and Howard Duff. In the finale, when Lancaster learns who the pidgeon really is...the look on his face will send chills up your spine...No dialogue is needed. Bleak and almost surreal!

Rating:
Summary: A Hammer
Review: There's a feverish undercurrent to this prison film that occasionally erupts into outright delirium ( the prison break, the interrogation scene). As delivered by Director Jules Dassin and screenwriter Richard Brooks, the film's anti-fascist message is put in your face, not in your lap. Still it's exciting stuff, except for the draggy domestic scenes that are meant to humanize the cons, but instead disrupt the film's relentless pace and super-charged atmosphere. Burt Lancaster gives a career performance, while Hume Cronyn is surprisingly effective as the sly Nazi-like warden. There are many notables in the supporting cast, especially Art Smith as the humane but feckless doctor and Sir Lancelot as his calypso assistant. I suspect there's a provocative parable lurking somewhere in the subtext, something about the inability of liberals (the old warden and the doc) to contain the brute impulse it takes to keep people in prison. This is revealed at film's end when the camera dollys back to reveal the doc behind office bars and speaking toward the camera, then we know the movie is about more than a bunch of desperate convicts breaking through prison walls. Despite its many flaws, this stark melodrama keeps coming at you with the mesmerizing force of an uplifted hammer and should not be missed.

Rating:
Summary: the best prison film ever acted.
Review: this film is without a doubt the best prison film ever made to this present time 1998.it stars burt lancaster and hume cronin in the best roles of their career (its probably one of their first films)the supporting cast is also supperb,the last half hour of the film is chilling.view it today.

Rating:
Summary: "Force does make leaders."
Review: Westgate Prison is a powder keg. It's overcrowded, and the prisoners are treated inhumanely. Warden, A.J. Barnes (Roman Bohan) can't seem to control the prison, and he's being eased out by Captain Munsey (Hume Crohn). Munsey is the villain of the film. He has his own ideas about running the prison, and Munsey can't wait to install some real discipline. His corrupt methods include maintaining stoolies in the system and beating prisoners to get information out of them. In contrast to Munsey, is the prisoner Collins (Burt Lancaster) who effectively leads a prison break. Collins possesses the sensitivity and humanity that the fascist Munsey lacks. The two men are the antithesis of one another.

"Brute Force" has a slow beginning. The idea that all the nice men are locked up while the brutes run the prison was quite frankly, overdone. Several of the prisoners in cell R17 recall their relationships with women in flashback. These scenes are dated and preposterous. Collins, for example, is shown tenderly ministering to his beloved--a sunny girl in a wheelchair. Another character has a dalliance with Yvonne de Carlo who hams up her role with an incredibly bad accent. These flashbacks are poorly executed, and they add to the absurdities of the film.

For film noir fans, however, "Brute Force" is worth catching for the sheer audacity of the prison break. While this, unfortunately takes place all too briefly at the end of the film, these scenes reveal the film's power. The film's message is clear--treat the prisoners like animals, and animals they will become. The sheer hate and violence that's been simmering in these desperate men is suddenly unleashed at the prison system. This superb latter section of the film is gritty, realistic and savagely violent. Munsey reveals his true evil nature while many prisoners sacrifice their lives in an attempt to even the score. For this ultimate realism, we can forgive the film's beginnings and accept "Brute Force" as an astonishing film for its time--displacedhuman