The Last Castle is a 2001 American action drama film directed by Rod Lurie, starring Robert Redford, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo and Delroy Lindo. The film portrays a struggle between inmates and the warden of a military prison, based on the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. A highly decorated U.S. Army Lieutenant General, court martialed and sentenced for insubordination, challenges the prison commandant, a colonel, over his treatment of the prisoners. After mobilizing the inmates, the former general leads an uprising aiming to seize control of the prison. The film was released in the United States on October 19, 2001. It received mixed reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, grossing just $27 million against its $72 million budget. Plot Lieutenant General Eugene Irwin is brought to a maximum security military prison to begin a ten-year sentence for deciding to send U.S. troops on a mission in Burundi, violating a presidential order and resulting in the deaths of eight soldiers. Colonel Winter, the prison's commandant, greatly admires Irwin, until Irwin criticizes his much-prized military artifacts collection, calling it something no actual battlefield veteran would ever have. Offended Winter, who has never seen combat, resents the remark. He then opposes what he perceives as Irwin's attempt to change the attitudes of the prisoners, his admiration for Irwin fading fast. On one occasion, Irwin is reprimanded after stopping a guard from clubbing a prisoner, Corporal Ramon Aguilar, who had mistakenly saluted Irwin in the prison yard, violating a tenet of Winter's methods for running the prison, that the prisoners are no longer soldiers and therefore should stop acting as such. Continuing to observe cruel acts, Irwin attempts to unify the prisoners by building a "castle wall" of stone and mortar at the facility, which in many ways resembles a medieval castle. Envying the respect Irwin is clearly receiving, Winter orders his guards to destroy the wall. When Aguilar, an integral leader in the wall's construction, blocks the bulldozer, Winter orders sadistic sharpshooter Cpl. Zamorro via a coded hand gesture to fire a normally non-lethal rubber bullet directly at Aguilar's head, killing him. After the wall is destroyed, Irwin and the inmates pay final respects to Aguilar in formation. Winter later offers some small concessions to Irwin, who rejects them as flimsy, and calls him a disgrace to the uniform, demanding his resignation. The prisoners begin to behave like soldiers