Every once in awhile I am surprised by a film which offers a message that I never expected. When I checked out Brubaker, an old Robert Redford film from the late '70s, from my local video store I expected some romantic adventure from one of Hollywood's biggest stars. That's not at all what I got.

Instead I saw a wonderful and thought-provoking portrayal of human nature. Brubaker turned out to be a spellbinding film about the futile attempt of an enlightened prison warden to reform a hopelessly corrupt prison. Brubaker was the name of the warden, played by Robert Redford, who had dramatic success in reforming a prison, but then was run out of his job by a prison board which didn't want the system to change.

Brubaker was enormously successful in reforming his prison for several reasons. Th…