Brubaker is a 1980 American drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Robert Redford, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Alexander, Murray Hamilton, David Keith, and Tim McIntire.
It tells the story of Henry Brubaker (Redford), an official sent to take over a notorious Arkansas prison, his efforts to reform the prison, and the resistance he encounters to his intended reforms.
The film has examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: When Brubaker is telling Coombes he only wants one-time murderers on tower duty (he thinks they'll have gotten it out of their system and won't kill indiscriminately again, as opposed to habitual criminals), like him, Coombes chuckles and responds, "There's nobody around here like me."
- At Least I Admit It: When Mr. Clarence is running for trustee, he tells everyone he's corrupt, just like them, but at least he's willing to admit it.
- Character Title
- Chekhov's Gunman: During one meeting of the prison board, a more stereotypically stern and conservative warden from Texas visits to discuss how he disagrees with Brubaker's methods. After Brubaker is fired, he is hired as the new warden and undoes most to all of Brubaker's reforms.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The trustees do this to Abraham after he tells Brubaker about the bodies buried in the prison, ultimately killing him.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Trustee Rauch is the most corrupt of the rotten batch of veteran trustees, but he has a girlfriend in town and they have a good relationship.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Bullock describes how he had two felony convictions an was arrested for Drunk and Disorderly, and when he woke up, the toilet in the cell was broken. Everyone in the cell blamed him, so he was charged with "Destruction of City Property worth over $50," a felony, which made him "a habitual criminal" for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment. As he points out to the warden, "I got life for a toilet."
- Flawless Token: Flawless is a strong word, given that they are convicted felons, but none of the African-American prisoners are among the antagonists who abuse their authority and undermine Brubaker, while the only African-American man on the prison board is the only one who tries to help Brubaker.
- Honor Before Reason: Brubaker comes across as a Doomed Moral Victor, but Lillian isn't wrong in pointing out he doesn't have to be.
- He doesn't fire the corrupt and murderous former trustees because he knows the other prisoners will kill them if they lose that protection. This leaves them in a position to continue committing murder and hurting his reforms.
- He refuses to cover up several murders committed under his predecessors when investigating further will get him fired in favor of a warden who hates reform, but dropping the matter will make the board give him funding to turn the prison into a genuine rehabilitative facility. Brubaker argues that letting the prisoners think it's OK for the system to get away with murder is a terrible message to impart and the ripple effects of his efforts contributed to the oppressive prison being shut down, but this still means the end of the reforms he tries to implement in his tenure.
- King Incognito: Knowing that he would not see anything if he visited the prison as an official, Brubaker poses as a common convict who arrives at the prison the same as other inmates. This pays off as he witnesses the torture, rape, graft, and other abuse that the previous warden never would have allowed him to see otherwise.
- Pet the Dog:
- Trustee Caldwell is a prison rapist who beats and tortures people for infractions of the rules or for being potential informants, but he also has a pet cat that he treats well.
- Prison clerk Purcell is a duplicitous crook who acts as The Mole for Brubaker's enemies, but he remains polite and respectful to Brubaker rather than gloating after he's fired, partially due to the actions of Purcell and his friends, and promises to forward Brubaker's magazines to his new job.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Basically how the previous warden and a number of local officials acted in regards to the treatment of prisoners.
- Slow Clap: When Brubaker is kicked out of the warden position, as he's leaving, Coombes leads the other inmates in this.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Brubaker is based on the efforts of real life prison administrator Thomas O. Murton, who attempted to clean up the Tucker and Cummins Prison Farms in Arkansas in the late 1960s. Murton served as a technical advisor for the film. The warden posing as an inmate part of the movie was fictionalized and was not something that Murton had done. That plot device may have been inspired by warden Thomas Osborne, who did at one point pose as an inmate at a New York prison.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Lillian and Brubaker's relationship in a nutshell - she thinks he's shooting himself in the foot by not being willing to compromise with the prison board members so that they'd be willing to help him with the reforms he wants to implement, while he thinks she's too willing to compromise on principle, and doesn't, in essence, agree with his principles.
