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I always knew Cool Hand Luke was a good movie, just never got around to watching it. When I saw it was coming up on American Movie Classics, I figured it was worth saving on my DVR and giving it a look. All I knew about it was that Paul Newman cuts off the tops of parking meters, eats a bunch of eggs in a contest, and some chain gain boss says that famous "failure to communicate" quote. An intriguing sample of things, for sure, but it was finally time to give it a look.

The story is pretty simple. Paul Newman is clearly a born loser who has a lifetime of screwing up. He's thrown in a workcamp jail for a drunken night of mischief and has an unchained spirit that can't be held down. His "I won't back down" attitude and cool demeanor make him a hero to the other convicts and the bane of the folks in charge.

I really like that this "prison movie" is in a non traditional setting. It's really more of a work camp and they work in a chain gang doing work like hacking at dry weeds and tarring roads. There's some hazing of the new guys, but mostly it's a bunch of decent men who screwed up and are trying to make the best of it.

Newman's Luke is an oddball new guy who immediately gets under the skin of the camp's alpha prisoner "Dragline" played by George Kennedy. It all comes down to a sanctioned boxing match between the two on a hot dusty Saturday afternoon. Dragline, twice the size of Newman, easily knocks him down, but Luke just won't stay down, despite getting floored over 15 times. The half conscious Luke still throwing punches as Dragline walks away out of pity. Luke wins the fight not by taking out his opponent, but by never giving up.

Another famous scene is when Luke brags he could eat 50 eggs in an hour, for no other reason than to provide something to get the camp excited about. It's a painful sequence with a payoff that has a non unintentionally Christlike Newman laying on a table, arms stretched outward in collapsed agony, with a halo of broken eggshells around his head.

But Luke is no messiah figure. He even chastises his pals to stop leeching off him. And his escape attempts are both inspiring and humbling. Like many folks who get out of jail, Luke can't function in the outside world either. He'll be back whether they catch him, or he simply screws up again.

For a guy who can't make it inside or outside of jail, it's a Catch-22.

The ensemble cast is great with some very young classic actors here like Wayne Rogers, Harry Dean Stanton, Lou Antonio, Dennis Hopper, Ralph Waite, and Joe Don Baker present. These guys weren't hired to be in the movie for any other reason than they were just damn good actors.

The art direction in the movie is wonderful, as is the music by Lalo Schifrin (who gave you other classic scores like Planet of the Apes and Mission Impossible).

I don't know what the message of this movie really is. In the case of The Shawshank Redemption, you have a wrongly accused man who fights for his own freedom and uplifts his fellow inmates along the way. Cool Hand Luke doesn't really aim that high. Luke doesn't just want to escape from prison, but he wants to escape from responsibility. To Luke, the whole world is just one big prison.

It's a great character study that would make a great live stage show, too.

Directory Stuart Rosenberg, who passed away in 2007, made another prison film in 1980, Brubaker, which I'll be watching next.