アーウィンは輝かしい戦歴を誇る三つ星の中将だったが、ある出来事のため軍法会議にかけられ軍刑務所に収監されてしまう。そこでは刑務所長ウインター大佐が囚人達を虫けらのように扱う非人道的な管理が行われていた。戦場の英雄アーウィンとて例外ではなく、それまでの地位も名誉も剥奪され、一兵卒と同様の扱いを受ける。当初はアーウィンに対して距離を置いていた囚人達だったが、次第に打ち解け合うようになる。
AIが作品の魅力を深く読み解いています
製作費: $72,000,000 (108億円)
興行収入: $27,642,707 (41億円)
推定収支: $-44,357,293 (-67億円)
※製作費・興行収入はTMDBのデータを参照しています。収支は(興行収入 - 製作費)で算出したFindKey独自の推定値であり、広告宣伝費や諸経費は含まれません (1ドル=150円換算)。
監督: Rod Lurie
脚本: デヴィッド・スカルパ / グレアム・ヨスト
音楽: ジェリー・ゴールドスミス
制作: Don Zepfel / Robert Lawrence
撮影監督: Shelly Johnson
Robert Redford is "Irwin", a disgraced general sent to a military prison after his court-martial for disobeying orders during an operation in Africa that led to the death of eight under his command. Almost immediately he and the commandant "Winter" (James Gandolfini) take against each other and what now ensues is a gradual positioning of both men for a contretemps. The former man, initially, just wants to do his time - but as he sees the arbitrary and sometimes lethal fashion in which the place is run, he is soon working with the 1200 other inmates to create an effective unit than can resist, perhaps even overthrow, the regime. The first half hour of this is quite well developed, battle lines are drawn as the two men play a game of intellectual chess. Sadly, though, that momentum descends quite quickly into a rather far-fetched drama that featuresd a plot riddled with holes, some totally implausible incidents and in the end, a denouement that has something of the pantomime to it. Redford adopts a less is more approach to his role which he carries off adequately with little dialogue - indeed, pretty much little of anything. Gandolfini is, however, completely unconvincing as a senior officer who appears to have little humanity or grasp on the reality of the scenarios presented to us by Rod Lurie. Clifton Collins Jr offers the best effort from amongst the cast with his portrayal of the troubled "Aguilar", but I couldn't quite make out just what the role of the duplicitous "Yates" (Mark Ruffalo) was meant to represent - maybe I had just given up by then. I reckon this might have made for a decent read; allowing us to inject character traits into what personalities are on offer here using our own imagination. As a piece of cinema, however, it is little more than a vehicle for a star who is nowhere near his best working with a story that stretched my imagination just a bit too far for far too long.
