one thing I didn't like

Rating: 8/10 (16 March 2005)

I don't disagree with the vast majority of folks that have seen this movie and found it to be excellent. But instead of chiming in with more rave comments, I'll mention the one thing I thought could have made it a better film.
I think the director had a choice as to how to portray the two chief villains, the warden and the head prison guard. He could have modeled them after well known American villainous types, or he could have used a Nazi type model. He seemed to have chosen the later which I felt was unfortunate. Maybe some would disagree, but I perceived them both as Nazis as I watched the film. The Warden's steely intellectual manner reminded me more of a sadistic Nazi doctor than a bible thumping Christian. And the prison guard was very teutonic looking and handsome rather than looking like the brutish American stereotype that I would have preferred. I guess its a minor point, but given the rave reviews this movie has gotten, I felt it deserved mention. I would have been able to identify with the banker's suffering even more with more believable, American villains rather than ones that seemed calculated to evoke memories of WWII prisoner of war camps.