I've seen this movie several times over the years and it never gets old. Gossett, Platt and Dern are terrific in their respective roles, but Woods takes every scene with his white suit and smarminess.
However, what really makes this movie great is that despite knowing how it ends, it still draws you in and makes you laugh, feel empathy when it wants you to and hate who it wants you to. It's successful at this despite the characters and situations being stereotypical: the soulless Dern, his privileged but innocent son, the Italian mafia, the hayseed Southerners (or wherever this is supposed to be set, it was filmed in CA and MT), the corrupt cops, prison guards and warden, et al. And somehow Michael Ritchie makes it all work, no matter how many times you see it.
In the year this was Oscar-eligible, David Paymer (Mr. Saturday Night), Jay Davidson (The Crying Game) and Al Pacino (Glengarry Glen Ross) were nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Gene Hackman won for Unforgiven, but I'd say Lou Gossett's performance was at least as good as him and better than the other three (does anybody remember any of those performances?). Jack Nicholson didn't win for A Few Good Men and Pacino won Best Actor that year.
