A debate-forum movie, a chew-over of the topic of capital punishment, complete with de rigueur attention to the moment-by-moment minutiae of death-day prison procedure (frequent shots of the clock on the wall along the way). As seemingly dissimilar as it is from writer-director Tim Robbins's first effort -- the political spoofery of Bob Roberts -- it is united to that one, all the same, in its close connections to television. Much of the material, like much of Bob Roberts's material, seems simply a dutiful dramatic elaboration of things witnessed on the six-o'clock news, or, unlike Bob Roberts's, on true-crime tabloid shows: re-enactments of the crime, interviews with family members, coverage of courtroom appearances and protest demonstrations, behind-bars "exclusives." And the presentation always remains journalistically balanced, fair-minded, noninflammatory, a bit timid, after the fashion of TV docudramas when the facts are still in dispute. Susan Sarandon, Robbins's off-screen mate, is somewhat gushy and oozy as the real-life Sister Helen Prejean, official spiritual advisor to a fictitious prisoner on death row. But a sleepy-eyed, soufflé-haired Sean Penn, as the doomed inmate, dispenses a precisely calibrated characterization, never giving out too much at one time, that reaffirms his serious candidacy as the Finest Actor of His Generation. Or some such post. His manacled cigarette-lighting technique, a brilliant bit of gestural portraiture, is alone enough to distinguish this convict from all others in screen history. And that's only a starting point. With Robert Prosky, Scott Wilson. (1995) — Duncan Shepherd
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