Whenever you hear the words Death, Row and Documentary in the same sentence, you instantly know the deal – falsely accused white trash is saved by impassioned ninety minute plea of a dedicated filmmaker.
You see, documentary loves the the falsely accused The system of injustice, of botched investigations, of bent cops, corrupt, careless judges and the 'man' keeping the poor, the black and the mentally ill behind bars where they belong.
But not Werner Herzog. This one-man institution of documentary chucks that formula out the window.
We've been taught to see the well-spoken, smiling man on death row as our beat upon, down- trodden hero, and after opening with this tried and tested device, Herzog yanks us back to the crime scene and the hero's utterly depraved and senseless brutality.
So far, so new, fresh and daring; but then, twenty minutes into what could have been an incredible film, he starts meandering through the wider story, of one of the killer's incarcerated father, whose regret and life-saving courtroom plea proved the difference between life and death row, and of the town full of white trash with their own drunken bar fight war stories. It all gets a bit muddy and unfocused.
For the next hour, it seems to stall, and you start hankering to see more of the killers' interview as, well, that's what sold us the ticket stub after all, but they have neither the screen time, nor the insightful comments, to really deliver on the promise of the premise.
Eventually, in the closing fifteen minutes, we get a chance to really ruminate on the inhumanity of the death penalty and of loss, which ends up being rather ghastly and offering, perhaps, a sigh of relief we didn't have to endure that intensity for the full 106 minutes.
An in-depth study of death row and the death penalty, sadly this is not, and while, admirably, Herzog was trying to do things differently, he really only managed to deliver a strange meandering journey through the trailer trash and gated communities of Smallville, Texas.
You see, documentary loves the the falsely accused The system of injustice, of botched investigations, of bent cops, corrupt, careless judges and the 'man' keeping the poor, the black and the mentally ill behind bars where they belong.
But not Werner Herzog. This one-man institution of documentary chucks that formula out the window.
We've been taught to see the well-spoken, smiling man on death row as our beat upon, down- trodden hero, and after opening with this tried and tested device, Herzog yanks us back to the crime scene and the hero's utterly depraved and senseless brutality.
So far, so new, fresh and daring; but then, twenty minutes into what could have been an incredible film, he starts meandering through the wider story, of one of the killer's incarcerated father, whose regret and life-saving courtroom plea proved the difference between life and death row, and of the town full of white trash with their own drunken bar fight war stories. It all gets a bit muddy and unfocused.
For the next hour, it seems to stall, and you start hankering to see more of the killers' interview as, well, that's what sold us the ticket stub after all, but they have neither the screen time, nor the insightful comments, to really deliver on the promise of the premise.
Eventually, in the closing fifteen minutes, we get a chance to really ruminate on the inhumanity of the death penalty and of loss, which ends up being rather ghastly and offering, perhaps, a sigh of relief we didn't have to endure that intensity for the full 106 minutes.
An in-depth study of death row and the death penalty, sadly this is not, and while, admirably, Herzog was trying to do things differently, he really only managed to deliver a strange meandering journey through the trailer trash and gated communities of Smallville, Texas.