Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Too much of everything

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Man I didn't know what I was in for when I sat down to watch this brutal little gem. This portrait of a doomed attempted prison break from a death row cell block hits very hard, and it left me shaking my head in stunned silence.I'm not surprised to learn from other reviews here that this story began its life as a stage play; most of the action takes place on one set, it features an ensemble cast with multiple meaty roles, and the first half of the film works at a deliberate pace with longer takes and scenes than are conventionally cinematic. It walks a thin line, how to get across the agonizing boredom of being in such a lockup, without becoming boring itself? The answer is to spread dialog around, and to give a lot of weight to mundane events, magnifying tensions and emotions. It gives the excellent cast a lot of room to create, if not exactly sympathy, at least an understanding of where the characters are coming from.The second half (or maybe final third) of the movie is an altogether different animal, as the ticking timebomb of Mickey Rooney's John Mears explodes into violent retribution. Mears is a complicated character, an atheist and maybe a nihilist, but he cares deeply about his fellow death row inmates. Rooney's performance is AMAZING and dominates this section of the film. Also excellent are Clifford David as the youngest man on the row, next scheduled to be executed, and Frank Overton as Father O'Connors, the priest who gives the condemned men their last rites. His character shows tremendous courage as events spiral into bloodshed; he has a lot more backbone than the guards, who for the most part are sniveling, cowardly, sadistic creeps.And as others have noted, the jazz score is outstanding, dynamic, punchy, and powerful. It maybe calls attention to itself a little too much, but it's wildly effective in underlining and slapping exclamation points on events throughout the film.In short, terrific.

This one came right out of left field. I tuned in because I like Mickey Rooney and crime pictures in equal measure, but ended up getting a lot more than I bargained for. The Last Mile is one of the bleakest American films I've ever seen, a no holds barred depiction of life (so to speak) on Death Row. The tone is decidedly European; if Ingmar Bergman had ever made a prison flick, this would have been it. This is all the more surprising considering Howard Koch served as director and future Amicus honchos Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg produced! The cast is uniformly excellent, with especial kudos to Rooney as Killer Mears, Ford Rainey as Red Kirby (whose 30 day stay comes into play during the film's second act), and Leon Janney as sadistic prison guard Callahan (a role I can also imagine James Craig essaying with equal relish). Van Alexander contributes a fantastic, jazz-inflected score, Joseph Brun's black and white cinematography is frequently stunning, and the whole thing reminded me of Jacques Becker's Le Trou, which in my opinion is very high praise indeed!

The movie may be a cheap-jack production, but it also has a number of graphic touches including Rooney's absolutely riveting performance. With its single set, ugly b&w photography, and no-name cast (except for Rooney), I can't imagine the film played more than a few remote drive-in's farthest from town. Nonetheless, the 80-minutes pushes the bounds of 50's movie-making in several notable ways.For example, catch how much emotional fear the doomed men—whether guards or cons— show when facing death. It's really unusual for that period to risk agitating audiences with realistic fears of death. But this one does. Also, the ricocheting bullets had me ducking under my chair— a really well done special effect. Actually, this cheapo comes closer to Sam Peckinpah's raw depiction of violence than about any film I've seen from that time—bullets actually raise blood, and despite their pleading people do get shot point blank. I'm guessing the producers got away with this because Hollywood didn't much care what a few necking teenagers might use for background.It's an ugly movie in more ways than one—not a single woman in sight!-- just a bunch of ugly guys. At the same time, the first half too often drags before picking up with the slam-bang second half. Then too, have you ever seen a more barren or squeakier clean cell block, likely a reflection of the story's stage origins. Anyway, it's Rooney at his most intense. And despite the movie's really brutal nature, there are more moments of genuine honesty than in most A-productions of the period. But it's not one you want to see if you're feeling down.

Gritty, realistic movie of those on the wrong side of the bars and of life. A simply great movie that stays in my mind though I haven't seen it since I was a teenager (I'm 61 now).Though, as I said, it is a great movie; it would simply be another unmemorable, tepid little jail-house potboiler if not for a towering performance by Mickey Rooney. No pun intended. Every once in a while I check to see if it has come out on DVD. Not yet. Too bad. It would sell to those of my age group; which I guess explains why it is not out.I used to work in the industry, as a "grip" back in the early 70's. The workers spoke very fondly (and in certain areas, with awe) of Mickey. Dennis/Kim