Director Stuart Rosenberg had already directed one of the all-time great prison dramas, COOL HAND LUKE (1967), starring Paul Newman. A year after he made the original version of the classic horror film THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, he returned to team up with Newman’s BUTCH CASSIDY and STING co-star Robert Redford in 1980 for BRUBAKER, a film which was allegedly based on the inner workings of a real-life American penitentiary.
Henry Brubaker (Redford) arrives at Wakefield State Penitentiary posing as a new inmate – and discovers a corrupt and suppressive infrastructure, with the guards as bad as the inmates. Fights on all fronts and a variety of questionable routines cause Brubaker to reveal his true identity when he has to deal with a troubled individual (Morgan Freeman in an early film role) in confinement.
The path to change is not easy, with the old guard resistant and many who were used to the old warden discovering Brubaker is not suffering fools gladly find out it is his way or the highway. As Brubaker delves deeper, exploring not only what is within the prison, but also the surrounding area that belongs to it, he discovers far greater problems…
Scripted by W.D. Richter, who wrote the classic 1978 remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and John Carpenter’s cult classic BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986), BRUBAKER is one of Robert Redford’s best later films, backed up by a great supporting cast, which includes Yaphet Kotto (LIVE AND LET DIE, ALIEN) and Murray Hamilton (Mayor Vaughn in JAWS (1975)