Les héros sont en cage

An exceptional piece of acting, on the part of Gary Oldman (gee; what else is new?) and Dennis Hopper, who ALWAYS comes through with fine performances.

However, Gary Oldman simply transcends acting like no other actor in the world. He is magnificent in this role of a desperate, but good and sincere man.

The movie might not be for the squeamish - but it IS for people who enjoy stories of true heroism - portrayed by a genius like Mr. Oldman.

I would LOVE it if critics would re-discover this motion picture for its greatness in plot, and its acting.

Overlooking Gary Oldman's performance in this film is the biggest crime since "Oliver" won the Best Picture Oscar over "2001".....

Will they never learn?

Chattahoochee is directed by Mick Jackson and written by James Cresson (as James Hicks). It stars Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper, Francis McDormand, Pamela Reed, Ned Beatty and M. Emmet Walsh. Music is by John E. Keane and cinematography by Andrew Dunn.

In 1955 Florida, Korean veteran Emmett Foley (Oldman) has a breakdown and is incarcerated in a "maximum security" mental health prison. Here he witnesses patients being abused and used.

One landed in the cuckoo's nest.

Intense incarceration based tale, Chattahoochee suffers due to a cliché riddled screenplay that can't hit the upper echelons of pics dealing with the "mismanagement" of mental health patients. Foley's attempts to expose the nightmarish conditions at the facility he is imprisoned in, keeps the viewer interested, as does his burgeoning friendship with Benson (Hopper) and the crashing of his relationship with the girl he loves outside (McDormand).

Ultimately, it's well performed by the principals, but staid in writing and direction to the point you end up hankering for the "greats" of the genre made previously. 6/10

To name it Chattahoochee was quite relevant, as opposed to 'Foley' which would have 'Sounded' just as befitting; in not isolating the terror to a specific case. Extremely poignant performance by Pamela Reed and terrifically acted by an unmatched Gary Oldman. The selection of Hopper as the accommodating surviving wiz, in atrocious places like Chattahoochee, was proven to be a superb choice by Hopper convincing realism. BRAVO to Jackson too and may be three!

I'm not sure why anyone would really want to watch a movie like this. This film is generally getting good reviews, but these seem to be from Gary Oldman fans who would probably rave about him in anything. It's a grim account of life in a mental prison. The prisoners are kept in squalor (surprise, surprise), mistreated by brutal guards (ditto) until one man exposes the goings-on with the inevitable Hollywood denouement.

The film starts with an unnecessary voice-over from Oldman's character, but this technique is soon dropped leaving us disorientated - why does he go berserk? - perhaps we needed that voice over after all... A major weakness of the plot is that the hero is someone who at the beginning of the film runs amok in his neighborhood with a gun. Say what...? this is the hero...? Well, he has a tough job to endear himself to us after that, and he doesn't make it. This undermines the basic purport of the film, namely to make a hero out of Oldman's character. To further alienate us, Oldman is made to sport the most execrable beard in movie history for the whole second half of the film.

Presumably we are meant to get some satisfaction from the ending, but several decades after the event, does anyone really give a dang about it? We know conditions in these institutions, and everywhere else, were bad in the past. As this is a true story, the ending is also a foregone conclusion and is brought about very abruptly and clumsily in the last minute of the film. A movie of these credentials should not have you thinking at the end "oh, is that it then?".

There is not a single laugh in the movie (apart from Oldman's beard), which is a pity as it is crying out for some moments of levity to counterbalance the grimness. Oldman's character is relentlessly and often unpleasantly intense (surely the director's fault). The directing is sometimes messy (chaotic unfocused foregrounds, etc). On the plus side, if you find yourself unwittingly in the midst of this film, you can take some comfort from Dennis Hopper (playing a rare kindly role) and Frances McDormand, who is good as Oldman's wife.

The director and star may be British, but make no mistake, this is very much a Hollywood picture. There's the usual morality story and the usual pandering to American's obsession with their own (ever-imperfect) legal system in the form of a fight for justice (though thankfully, we don't pay a visit to any real courtrooms along the way).

On the whole, just a bad idea.

In 1955, Korean War veteran Emmett Foley had a breakdown and shot up his neighbourhood, apparently in the hopes that the police would kill him and his wife would get insurance money. Instead, the police captured him and he ended up being committed to a mental institution with deplorable conditions where the inmates were routinely mistreated. I realize that this is supposedly based on a true story (I always wonder how accurate a movie is when it's "based" on a true story. How many liberties are taken in the telling?) and yet, this somehow seemed stale to me. It was predictable; it lacked power. Mental institutions of that day were horrible places. 1948's "The Snake Pit" (although set a bit earlier) packs a better punch than this, quite frankly, if you want an account of what conditions were like - even though it wasn't "based on a true story."

Gary Oldman's performance as Emmett was a good one. He was clearly the highlight of the movie. There are a lot of other familiar faces in this, but it's Oldman's movie. I appreciated his take on Emmett - who was really quite clear-headed in most respects. Once he's incarcerated, Emmett becomes an advocate for the prisoners being abused, writing letters to their families to tell them what's happening, and, with the help of his sister (played by Pamela Reed) getting state officials involved in the case. That's where the movie really let me down. It just fizzled out. The Governor learns about the situation and establishes a committee that Emmett testifies in front of - and then it's over. Just the captions telling us about some reforms that were made to the system. Surely it wasn't that easy? One piece of testimony in front of a committee and the problem is solved? It was just too easy. I was left thinking that there should have been more - not wanting more in a positive sense, but thinking that there should have been more as in "that's it?" Oldman gets points for a good performance. The movie itself disappoints.