Cool Hand Luke Movie Review

Cool Hand Luke was a very popular movie in its release in 1967. People still quote the memorable scenes to this day. But why is Cool Hand Luke so cool? Mostly this is due to its excellent cast and sharp filming skills all adding to make this one of the greatest films of all time.
The story Cool Hand Luke starts off with are main character Luke (Actor Paul Newman) drunk and unscrewing the heads of a parking meter. Luke smiles at the approaching police officers as the screen freezes and the title is shown. Luke is then thrown into a prison where he slowly begins to gain the respect of his fellow inmates. After learning about the death of his mother Luke then tries many cleaver escapes, all ending in being recaptured. Many of the shots of Luke’s adversaries were shot with a low camera view between their legs which would give a great angle of Luke looking up from the dirt to the one with the higher power. One of the main warden’s at the prison who wore sunglasses over his eyes was not given a name because this would add fear and mystery to this character. The movie also had many hidden religious twists fused into it. For example, when Luke sat down at the table on one occasion, The Last Supper was recreated. When the warden was fed-up with Luke he said his most famous line, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” The warden has Luke dig and refill the same hole repeatedly, in an attempt to break this troubled inmate. The hole that Luke dug was to represent his grave. Luke then appears to have given up living all together. However, later the next day Luke steals the guard’s truck and gets away with his friend and inmate, Dragline. After hiding the truck, Luke enters a church to speak with God. Many of the camera angles in this scene were shot with a high angle looking down on Luke. This is to show God’s view looking down on Luke. All higher powers look down on Luke in this movie. Luke then asks God for a sign and that’s when Dragline enters the room. Dragline tells Luke that he is surrounded and that he will not be harmed if he surrenders peacefully. Luke then walks up to the window and mocks to the crowd, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate”. This is when Luke is shot through the chest. The camera then does a close up view of the boss with the sunglasses as he reloads his rifle. This gives us a view of Luke’s killer. The camera then moves back inside the church to show Dragline helping Luke walk outside. After Dragline gives Luke to the other guards he then attacks the guard will the sunglasses and begins choking him. The other guards capture Dragline and throw him into a car. The boss with no name then struggles to get up out of the mud and the camera then does a close up of his sunglasses being run over by a car, which shows us that his power has been defeated. The camera then shows a close up view of Luke through the back window. Luke is smiling that same smirk from the beginning of the film. The car Luke is in approaches a green light that suddenly turns red to symbolize Luke’s death.
I chose to do a scene review on Luke’s death because I thought it was the best filmed and written scene in the whole movie. The scene tells people never to give up in what you believe in even if it will result in death, because it is better to die smiling then to die miserable. For this very reason this is why Cool Hand Luke was such a good movie with a fantastic moral story that will be relevant for generations to come.