Dead Man Walking
by Tim Robbins
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DVD details
Actor: R. Lee Ermey, Raymond J. Barry, Robert Prosky, Sean Penn, Susan SarandonDirector: Tim Robbins
Brand: SARANDON,SUSAN
Writer: Tim Robbins
Producer: Allan F. Nicholls
Producer: Bob White
Producer: Eric Fellner
Producer: Jon Kilik
Producer: Mark Seldis
Writer: Helen Prejean
DVD: 2 Sides, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-01-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Dead Man Walking
DVD Review: Leave it Dead!
Summary: 1 Stars
Just a lot of bleeding heart mumbo jumbo. Robbins directed it like it was a high school play. Terrible!DVD Review: fast service
Summary: 4 Stars
I received this very quickly. However, it does seem that the soundtrack is somewhat of poor quality. It is audible and works fine enough to watch, but it did not seem to be up to par with most other DVD's. Possibly it is just that the movie is older.DVD Review: 2.5 stars out of 4
Summary: 3 Stars
The Bottom Line:
Slow and obvious, Dead Man Walking impressed a lot of critics and academy voters but I must confess to finding it rather boring; the acting is good enough (Penn more than Sarandon) but the characters don't draw much interest from the audience and the lack of conflict and tension render the film rather dull.
DVD Review: Sarandon--riding along into the sunset--with Sean Penn...
Summary: 4 Stars
It's easy to kill a monster, but it's hard to kill a human being.'
Set in St. Thomas Housing Project and Angola Prison in New Orleans, "Dead Man Walking" is the true story of Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon), a Louisiana nun Sister who befriended Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn), a murderer and a rapist bound for a lethal injection machine for killing a teenage couple... Sister Helen agrees to help the convict and to remain with him till the end--an act never before attempted by a woman...
At their first meeting, Poncelet swears to the nun that his accomplice was the one who shot both of the kids and pleads her help for a new trial in order to convince the pardon board hearing to spare his life...
The film challenges the audience to actually give some thought to the human consequences of the death penalty, but gives voice to angry bereaved parents whose kids were shot, stabbed, raped, and left in the woods to die alone...
As Poncelet's execution looms closer and closer, his character is seen deceptively complex, harboring doubts about the rightness of what they were doing to him... In one moment, we hear him sensitive asking for a lie detector test to let his mother know that he is innocent, in another we see him furious playing the victim, blaming the government, drugs, blacks, the kids for being there... Poncelet never understood that he has robbed the Percys and the Delacroixs so much, giving them nothing but sorrow... They are never going to see their children again, never going to hold them, to love them, to laugh with them...
In the scenes leading up to his execution, the death-row inmate drops his terrible facade and reveals his identity... Luckily both Sarandon and Penn are here exceptional--carrying out successfully an exquisite, tangible harmony of souls... When Sarandon was looking at Penn, she was projecting compassionate eyes brimming with tears... She asks him to visualize her as he dies-- ''I want the last thing you see in this world to be the face of love''--in that moment, we truly believed that she'll be the face of love for him...
DVD Review: Compassion and Truth Triumph
Summary: 4 Stars
This is an interesting movie that explores the concepts of capitol punishment. The movie claims to be neutral, but it does seem to be against it.
Very quickly, Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) is visiting Sean Penn who is sentenced to die for having a part in killing 2 teenagers. Sarandon tries to be compassionate, but she realizes that Penn at the very least has issues. She is trying to get Penn to believe in Jesus (seeing that his days are numbered). Penn denies responsibility for the deaths of the teenagers, so Sarandon does everything within her power to see that he gets fair chances of appeals. Needless to say, the parents of the victims just want Penn executed. (This begins an interesting subplot that will come full circle.)
Penn may have gotten some miles in his pleas, but he makes the DUMB mistake of praising Adolf Hitler on television. Granted, innocent people have been arrested and executed, but Penn has now shown his 'issues' on television for all to see. Needless to say, Sarandon is annoyed.
Perhaps due to Penn's acting abilities, we come to care about his character despite his crimes and mental issues. We then see that his execution is inevitable, and Sarandon has to go through the difficult job of being at Penn's side to the end. The methods of execution start to look cold and calculating. And we start to wonder what gives us the right to take the life of even a criminal. We can see that Sarandon gets little help from those she should. While the Prison Chaplain coldly says: "The Old Testament says 'an eye for an eye,' Sarandon bitterly counters it: "What about the NEW Testament where Jesus says: 'A man is greater than his worst sin?'"
There is some release of tension as Penn has a moment with his family. Once he confesses his guilt, the writer does not allow our newly won sympathy for Penn to slack for a moment. It will in fact increase right up until the end. Sarandon's arguably strongest moment is when she tells Penn to just keep his eyes on her face as sentence is carried out. In a way, Penn does have a final triumphant moment when he can honestly say: "Killing is wrong, whether it's me who does it, or your government." In other words, Penn has shown his executioners as well as others that they have become what they accused him of being.
If you are for capitol punishment, you are probably not going to like this movie. But if you are against it, you probably will like it a lot despite its profound sadness.
Description of Dead Man Walking
Inspired by the true story of a nun's relationship with a condemned man, this provocative examination of crime, punishment and redemption earned Susan Sarandon the 1995 Oscar?(r) for Best Actress and Sean Penn an Oscar?(r) nomination for Best Actor. Dead Man Walking is a "fast-moving and absorbing" film filled with "genuine suspense" (Variety) that will leave you awe-struck from beginning to end. Sister Helen Prejean (Sarandon), a compassionate New Orleansnun, is the spiritual advisor to Matthew Poncelet (Penn), a vicious, angry and complex murderer awaiting execution. Her dedication is to help others, like Matthew, find salvation. But as she attemptsto navigate Matthew's dark soul, she encounters a depth of evil that makes her question how far redemption can really go. Can she stave off the fateful day of execution long enough to save Matthew, or will she discover a truth that will rock the very foundation by which she lives her life?Superbly adapted and directed by Tim Robbins from the nonfiction book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, this spiritually enlightened drama is too intelligent to traffic in polemics or self-righteous pontifications against the death penalty. But in examining the issue of capital punishment from a humanitarian perspective, the film urges thoughtful reflection on the justifications for legally ending a human life. Although it features a fine supporting cast, the film maintains its sharp focus through flawless lead performances by Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon as the Catholic nun Prejean, and Sean Penn as the death-row killer she struggles to save. Robbins avoids a biased message, letting the movie examine both sides of the issue instead (R. Lee Ermey gives a fine performance as the grief-stricken father of one of Penn's victims). As the drama unfolds and Penn's execution deadline grows near, Dead Man Walking is graced by compelling depths of theme and character, achieving an emotional impact that demands further reflection and removes the stigma of piousness from socially conscious filmmaking. --Jeff Shannon
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