Brubaker

A film set in an American prison. New prisoners arrive. One of them is not like the others; quiet, watchful, taking in what happens. The prison runs as a farm. The inmates work the fields, some of the guards are inmates themselves, and the whole order rests on bribery: food is sold, beds are sold, medical reports are sold. The man lives that for a while and then says who he is: he is the new warden. From there the film is about an attempt to clean the place. He changes the staff, opens the books, cuts off the suppliers, and the state board grows uneasy. Then a matter surfaces: prisoners who disappeared years ago. It is said they may be buried on the land, and the warden orders digging. What the narrative is interested in is not a hero's success but his limit: the man is right, he does the right thing, and that is exactly why he cannot remain inside the institution. It draws on a real case. In the 1960s a prison superintendent in Arkansas ran a similar investigation and bodies were found buried on the grounds; the affair caused a great argument in the country. Robert Redford plays the warden. Yaphet Kotto, Jane Alexander, Murray Hamilton, David Keith and Morgan Freeman are in the cast. Stuart Rosenberg directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes hard American drama of the late 1970s and prison films. Who it is not for: anyone looking for hope; the film starts like a story of reform and does not end as one.