Very basic movie. It's not great nor bad. It's quite fine. Marsh Williams is a bit lazy and prone to anger, but technically gifted. He runs a distillery during the Prohibition with some workers. He's good at it and makes quality alcohol. But the 18th Amendment makes it illegal. One day cops find the distillery in the woods and Williams shoots at them and commands his workers to do the same. He then runs away and plans to hide for a few weeks and return to his life. But a cop died so he's in trouble. In real life his workers were Black and all said he must have shot the cop, he seemingly did and it actually happened in a different way. The cops were taking the distillery and the group returned and started shooting at the cops to stop them. In the trial it appeared that another worker shot the cop more times and likely killed him. But a 12-men White jury found the Black man not guilty. For Williams it wasn't as simple, in real life he pleaded insanity. One jury member found him not guilty. In the movie we see how Williams agrees to plead guilty instead of taking a retrial and in return the death penalty was taken off the table. A judge sentenced him to 30 years. Initially he found himself in a big city prison. The kind with shanks and criminality. A shank is found on him after a prisoner got killed. And he is sent to live with other chained up trouble makers in the woods in wagons. Horrible conditions with prisoners who break the rules getting whipped. After that he's sent to a minimum security prison. A pretty relaxed place. Actually the first prison we see for some minutes, the second one for a bit longer, third one is the movie itself. The story is told by a prison warden to his son in the future to scare him straight as he also is prone to anger. The prison warden became his best friend. Initially he doesn't want to contact his family and wants his wife to divorce him. As he's still a troublemaker the prison warden throws him in the hole for 30 days. There he invents a new rifle. He later draws one in secret then makes one in secret. After he's found out the warden agrees to let him continue on it. Much later the upper management reads the story in the media and after talking to Williams let him test the rifle. He then gets job contacts and is released early because his dad spends a lot of money on lawyers with political contacts so he can get a pardon. We discover that his rifle system was used in WW2 in 8m rifles.
The movie is pretty basic. A lot of scenes are just showing us what happened when in his life like marriage or big family conflicts. It's plain. Some scenes could have used much more creativity or more focus on the technical details to at least show us how a distillery or a rifle works. It's never dull, it's just a by the book movie. Nothing out of the ordinary. They even removed most of the Black people who would have been in the very negative roles here. Didn't want to make them look bad, clearly showing that they tried to avoid most potent conflict and drama. Overall people are happy and kind here. The prison warden and cops are great. Not always kind, but overall very fair. This is nice. In most new prison movies the cops and warden are mostly evil and racist. Then you read the real story and find out that this or that prison officer was a great friend of this protagonist prisoner in real life and you feel the movie did them dirty. Real life people made into villains just because the movie needed conflict. This movie always feels real on the other hand. The prisons look real and you can feel the prison tension. But no one is over the top super evil. People do want the best for everyone. Most workers are this way in real life too. And many prisoners like this who just made 1 giant mistake can be overall good people. I do feel like they could have made a bigger case about the cop Williams shot. He did kill a man for just doing his job. It did leave a widow and surely a big family behind. Yet they skip this stuff and just make a few jokes in the trial. They didn't want to make Williams look bad in any way. So you do feel like the movie is pulling punches. It never really goes into much negativity and lacks some punch. That's a James Stewart movie for you. The guy can't act to save his life. Constantly looking like a comedic lanky fool with no negative bone in his body making him feel like a cartoon character. He's by far the worst actor in the movie. His dad and the prison warden stand out as the top performers, but it's not enough. The movie is worth checking out if you want to learn about the story or want to see how an old prison system worked. It's quite fine and a decent waste of time. But it really doesn't do anything new or clever. The best thing about it are the realistic sets and technology. Put it on your watch list for a boring day if you have some time to waste. Largely it could have been improved by showing us his later life developing rifles and then showing us small technical rifle details with slow developments. We only see his prison life here. The least productive part of his life.
The movie is pretty basic. A lot of scenes are just showing us what happened when in his life like marriage or big family conflicts. It's plain. Some scenes could have used much more creativity or more focus on the technical details to at least show us how a distillery or a rifle works. It's never dull, it's just a by the book movie. Nothing out of the ordinary. They even removed most of the Black people who would have been in the very negative roles here. Didn't want to make them look bad, clearly showing that they tried to avoid most potent conflict and drama. Overall people are happy and kind here. The prison warden and cops are great. Not always kind, but overall very fair. This is nice. In most new prison movies the cops and warden are mostly evil and racist. Then you read the real story and find out that this or that prison officer was a great friend of this protagonist prisoner in real life and you feel the movie did them dirty. Real life people made into villains just because the movie needed conflict. This movie always feels real on the other hand. The prisons look real and you can feel the prison tension. But no one is over the top super evil. People do want the best for everyone. Most workers are this way in real life too. And many prisoners like this who just made 1 giant mistake can be overall good people. I do feel like they could have made a bigger case about the cop Williams shot. He did kill a man for just doing his job. It did leave a widow and surely a big family behind. Yet they skip this stuff and just make a few jokes in the trial. They didn't want to make Williams look bad in any way. So you do feel like the movie is pulling punches. It never really goes into much negativity and lacks some punch. That's a James Stewart movie for you. The guy can't act to save his life. Constantly looking like a comedic lanky fool with no negative bone in his body making him feel like a cartoon character. He's by far the worst actor in the movie. His dad and the prison warden stand out as the top performers, but it's not enough. The movie is worth checking out if you want to learn about the story or want to see how an old prison system worked. It's quite fine and a decent waste of time. But it really doesn't do anything new or clever. The best thing about it are the realistic sets and technology. Put it on your watch list for a boring day if you have some time to waste. Largely it could have been improved by showing us his later life developing rifles and then showing us small technical rifle details with slow developments. We only see his prison life here. The least productive part of his life.