Dead Man Walking | Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn

Dead Man Walking | Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn | Dead Man Walking

DVDs:

Dead Man Walking

	Dead Man Walking Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn MGM (Video & DVD), 2000 average customer review:based on 113 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

brilliant

I have never written an online review before. Also, Sean Penn and Sarandon and Tim Robbins have definitely gotten on my nerves in the past. Having said all that, this is a BRILLIANT movie. Sean Penn gives the finest performace, undoubtedly, of his life. He had me in tears for pretty much the whole movie. Susan S is also just amazing, as it director Tim Robbins. Absolutely nothing bad can be said about this movie. It's not overtly political in anyway. But also keep in mind that every form of human expression IS political to some degree. How can it not be?

Sean Penn is my new hero, simply by virtue of this movie. Honestly I have never been impressed with him in the past. Maybe I was just missing something. But I have never seen a better onscreen performance than the one he gave.

See it. You'll be an emotional basketcase afterwards, but you will appreciate this movie.

for more information click here

Dead Man Walking

My impressions of Matthew Poncelet changed significantly throughout the film. At the beginning, he was more of an arrogant racist like all the other convicted murderers on death row that deserved the pain of death. However, I found it so intriguing at the same time, to find Sister Helen Prejean being his spiritual advisor in defending him. It made me think, that whether the man was misunderstood by society or accused in a righteous way, it was devastating to see that at the end of the film, he sincerely apologized to the victim's relatives. It seemed clear to me that though Matthew was very detestable, Sister Helen was still as strong to offer love to such a killer. That probably the whole purpose of her advising him wasn't to save a life, but to teach the sinner what he did was wrong. The minutes before the execution left me so emotional, to see such a lonely and frightened sinner (like every individual on the face of this planet is), being truly sorry for his actions. I highly recommend everyone to watch this film.

for more information click here

Morality Play About a Desperate Man

Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) is working to improve the lives of the poor in New Orleans. She receives a request to visit a prisoner on death row. Her compassionate nature makes her visit the man.

When she meets Matthew Poncellete (Sean Penn), he is a humble man who is desperate to have some one help him out. But the man she met is not the man who committed the crimes or is his humility just an act? Through the movie she finds out it's a little of both.

When she attends an appeal hearing, she meets the parents of the two kids he killed and realizes that there are two sides to every story. These parents are still feeling the pain and cannot understand why she is giving the killer any sympathy. She realizes that to understand Matthew, she needs to understand the crime. She meets with both sets of parents to understand their pain. These are very effective scenes.

In the end, Matthew comes to term with his fate and Sister brings him together with his family.

Tim Robbins once again proves that he knows how to direct a film. This film is definitely an actors' film. His wife Sarandon wins an Oscar for her textured performance. Sean Penn finally starts to show what he is capable of and receives his first Oscar nomination. But it is Robbins' casting of the supporting players that makes the film great. Stage star Roberta Maxwell is compelling as Poncellete's mother. While Celia Weston was best know for her TV role on Alice, proves that she can manipulate an audience as on the victim's mother. And look for Jack Black in a very subdued performance - it would be nice if he repeated this more often.

This is definitely an anti-death penalty film but it does show that there are two points of view to every controversy.

DVD EXTRAS:
Commentary by Tim Robbins

for more information click here

A film with superb performances, but I honestly don't see the "balance" that many others have seen.

I first saw "Dead Man Walking" on television several years ago, and I didn't like it very much at all. I recently re-watched it because a friend of mine had expressed an interest in seeing it and because I have been doing sort of an informal study of redemption in the arts.
I disagree with those who say that Dead Man Walking presents an objective view. Just look who is in front of and behind the camera: Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and Sean Penn- three of the Poster-People of the Hollywood Far-Left. The focus of the film is clearly Sister Helen Prejean, (the film is based upon her book of the same name.) Indeed, the best part about "Dead Man Walking" is watching her wander quite unwittingly into a storm of hate and all-consuming sadness when she started out merely wanting to give a dying man some comfort in his final days, regardless of the means and motive of his death.
Still, because she is so obviously against Matthew Poncelet's execution she can definitely not be considered a neutral party.

It is certainly true that the victim's families are given a powerful voice, especially that of Clyde Percy, played with seething perfection by R. Lee Ermey.

While Sean Penn's performance, (like most of his work) is brilliant, I can say unequivocally that Matthew Poncelet remains a thoroughly dislikable human-being to the very end, he only disavows his Nazi beliefs when it becomes clear that they are a contributing factor to his execution. Worse, his belated confession of already well-established guilt is the very definition of "too little, too late", this is only compounded when he says "I think killin' is wrong, whether it's me or y'all, or the government that's doin' it." He follows that astoundingly hypocritical statement with an address to the victims, "I hope my death brings you some peace." Doesn't anyone remember that he is simply repeating Prejean's words, and that those words were prompted by Pocelet's defiant declaration that he "had a few words for Clyde Percy". Worse still is the presentation of the execution itself, the images of Poncelet's death are juxtaposed with images of his crime, which I am assuming (given the rest of the film, and the POVs of its creators) is meant to suggest some sort of perverse similarity between the two. It had the opposite effect on me, seeing those two events set side-by-side convinced me beyond doubt that the right course was taken. I really believe that if rape and double-murder, and a separate rape and attempted double-murder do not make you deserving of the death penalty then nothing will.

for more information click here