Dead Man Walking (1995)-"R"

Run Time:122 minutes

4 stars out of 4

As the massive debate over whether or not to continue using capital punishment rages on across the nation, films like Tim Robbins's 1995 Dead Man Walking remain powerful and relevent to Americans. A film that offers no easy answers and no blunt opinions, it excellently portrays the complexity and validity on both sides of the Death Penalty debate. Based on the autobiographical book by Sister Helen Prejean and loosely adapted for the screen by Tim Robbins, Dead Man Walking is the story of the last days of condemned killer Matthew Poncelet. Poncelet (played by Sean Penn), charged in the 1980's for his part in the deaths of two rural Louisianan teenagers, Walter Delacroix and Hope Percy, has been sitting on Death Row for nearly six years. By chance, a letter he sends to a New Orleans Catholic Church pleading for legal help winds up in the hands of Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon in an outstanding performance), who, at his request, goes to visit him at the State Prison in Angola, Louisiana. Prejean, who at first merely agrees to help the desperate convict find a lawyer for his appeal, but later becomes his personal spiritual counsel after overeager politicians set his execution date. Poncelet is not an easy man to sympathize with, at times expressing racist views, and who wishes, at one point, that if he could start all over again, "I would go something useful like join a terrorist organization and blow up government buildings." As appeals fail and last ditch efforts to save Poncelet's life seem hopeless, the conversations between Prejean and Poncelet turn increasingly to the past, about the murders, and it becomes clear that Poncelet was never as innocent as he had all along claimed to be. Prejean, facing a wall of criticism from the grief-racked families of the victims, has doubts herself about the value of spending her time with the killer, expressing at one point, "What am I doing with this man?" Though Poncelet is never portrayed as a saint, he is never really demonized either, and, through the shear talent of Sean Penn as an actor, we can see throughout the course the film the terrible effect that the years of hate and guilt have had on not only the victims' families, but on Poncelet as well. Dead Man Walking is neither an anti-Death Row diatribe nor a pro-Death Row story of an evil man deserving to die. Though at times (especially toward the end of the film) the emotional drama may seem to be a bit much, Dead Man Walking never oversteps its bounds by resorting to shamelessly toying with emotions. In an issue as complex and serious as capital punishment, any film dealing with it must be equally as complex and serious. Dead Man Walking goes above and beyond merely presenting a complicated issue, and instead leaves the viewer questioning their own values, opinions, and, to some extent, their religious beliefs.