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The question is whether the game is worth the candle, thus the gridiron as battlefield to complement the battlefield as gridiron from The Dirty Dozen. The dissolute gigolo (Burt Reynolds) is a former NFL quarterback with a points-shaving scandal, macho nonchalance is his forte, starting over means smacking down the shrewish mistress and driving her Maserati off a pier. Off to prison, where there's much to be learned "from a skillfully played football game," according to the warden (Eddie Albert). The team of inmates comes together, grudgingly at first then gleefully once the benefits are clear: "You mean we get to hit the guards?" The point of departure is not Cool Hand Luke but Losey's The Criminal, Robert Aldrich turns the extended donnybrook into a controlled, full-blooded uprising. Out of the swamp on the whim of the Nixonian overlord, a sports fan who lubricates the allegory with homilies and recommends unnecessary roughness to his gatekeeper (Ed Lauter). "I want every prisoner in this institution to know what I mean by power, and who controls it." The jock's redemption is couched in a good deal of choice cartooning, including Richard Kiel's baritone bugbear and Robert Tessier's smiling bullethead. (The female of the species must do with Bernadette Peters' congealed beehive and mismatched lipstick and nail polish.) Aldrich locates the anti-establishment jamboree at the bottom of the "progressive rehabilitation program," and, when things threaten to get a bit too crowd-pleasing, throws in an amiable sidekick (James Hampton) getting roasted alive in a locked cell. "Born Free" opens the arena, the climax is a rousing touchdown against law and order. "Where's your goddamn power theory now?" Hill (Undisputed) and Lee (He Got Game) lead the variations. With Michael Conrad, Harry Caesar, John Steadman, Charles Tyner, Mike Henry, Jim Nicholson, Tony Cacciotti, and Anitra Ford.
--- Fernando F. Croce |