Highly Overrated But Still Good

Absolutely Fantastic

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I Have Said It One Hundred Times And I Will Say It Again, To Me It's Worth Sitting Through 100 Bad Movies To Get To A Great Film And This Is It ... Burt Lancaster Is A Tough Prisoner Who (With His Group) Plan To Escape From Prison ... As They Try To Survive The Brutal Life Brought On Them By The Prison Head Guard Captain Munsey (Played Brilliantly By Hume Cronyn) And Plan Their Escape Each Of Them (The Prisoners Of Cell R17) Flashback To The Women They Left Outside The Prison ... Edgy Even For The Time Of Filming This Movie Paints (What I Think) Is A Realistic Life Behind Bars During That Era ... Full Of Tense Drama And Powerful Acting "Brute Force" From The Very Beginning Promises To Deliver An Excellent Movie And Does Not Fail ... A Veritable Who's Who Of Acting Talent Make This Movie A "Sitting On The Edge Of Your Seat" Thriller ... Another Reminder That The Era Of Excellent Movie Making Is Long Long Dead ...

Interesting prison drama.Joe Collins (played by Burt Lancaster) is a prisoner in Westgate Penitentiary. The senior officer at the prison is Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn), a power-mad, manipulative sadist. Collins is rebellious and constantly in trouble with the prison guards. He formulates a plan to escape but a confrontation with Captain Munsey is inevitable...An interesting look at prison life, and how people act when they have absolute power. The central plot was well thought out and made for a good story. However, the stories of how all the main prisoner-characters got there sometimes seemed unnecessary and felt like padding.Solid work by Burt Lancaster and Hume Cronyn in the lead roles. Good supporting performances too.

When Jules Dassin was placed on the Hollywood Blacklist in 1950 during the making of Night and the City, the director was on a roll. Along with Night and the City, which he filmed before being banned from the production studio, bringing his flourishing career to an immediate halt, Dassin also made The Naked City (1948) and Thieves' Highway (1949), now classics of the noir genre, and Brute Force, possibly the weakest of his noir quartet but a thrilling, insightful film nonetheless. Although set entirely inside prison walls - with a few flashback cutaways - Brute Force is pure pulp noir, featuring a towering lead performance from Burt Lancaster and a tour de force by Hume Conyn as the film's main antagonist.Joe Collins (Lancaster) has just done a stint in solitary. Being lead back to his cell by chief of security Captain Munsey (Conyn), Joe maintains his innocence and that the knife he was found with was planted on him. It turns out that Joe is indeed innocent of his alleged crime, and along with his friends from cell R17, knows who the culprit is. Their own brand of justice involves guiding the offender with flame-throwers onto a huge plate press while the guards are distracted by a brawl. With so much violence occurring inside the prison walls, Warden Barnes (Roman Bohnen) is put under pressure to control the inmates through strict discipline and the guards enforcing their authority. This catches the attention of the ambitious Munsey, and the likable Dr. Walter (Art Smith), who although constantly inebriated, can see the bubbling tensions and inevitable explosions of violence that are due to come.The film's title is suitably apt for the attitudes of the two opposing factions. Joe and his crew plan their escape by taking the prison with an arsenal of weapons at their disposal, while Munsey, using the warden's wavering support as an opportunity to rise through the ranks, starts to manipulate the prisoners into becoming informers and gleefully beating upon a prisoner when he refuses to talk. It's about the ugliness of brute force, and disastrous results that come from employing it. Munsey is a small man, but delights in imposing his authority on the weak and the restrained like a bullying victim getting revenge on the big boys who stole his lunch money. It's riveting throughout, but could have done without the flashback scenes, where it is revealed that the gang are all locked up as a result of some femme fatale or other. It builds to a ferocious climax, where the inmates fight the guards, ending on a note as suitably grim as it's portrayal of the durability of the prison system.

What a spectacular film! If Brute Force is ever remade by Universal, the brutality would have to seem more real, and the threat to the men more real, so that their plans to escape seem more essential for their very freedom. What aids this story are the flashbacks. The viewer gets to see how and why the men got to prison in the first place. The background information helps to understand the predicaments more clearly. It helps to see the moments in which their love for women almost redeemed them. The story seems to indicate that if you're going to die, there needs to be that dream which a man must cling to, that salvation somewhere in his head, even if it's no longer attainable.