I am not here to write a full review of the movie, although I Liked it well enough, points off for one thing. A flaw in the basic premise.
Why go after the guards? The prosecutor, the police, his defense attorney, the 12 members of the jury, the judge(s) who either sentenced him or denied his death row appeals, hell, even the governor who withheld their power to commute his sentence... ok, I can understand her desire to exact revenge against any or all of Them. They are, after all, the actual people responsible for her fathers execution. They Are the people who "put him there". But the guards in the chamber who merely carried out that sentence? No. No, They didn't decide his guilt or innocence and they certainly bore no responsibility for the miscarriage of justice which put him there that day to destroy her innocence and trigger the revenge she sought. No, the guards, the way I see it, were just there to do their jobs and carry out the sentence others had imposed. One could make an argument they were also victims of the broken justice system as they were also betrayed by a system that put them in the position of unknowingly leading an innocent man to his demise when they, in good faith, believed him to be fairly convicted. Was Hank not haunted by this man's death, so strongly that he quit his job and lived his life like a guilty man? They didn't attend the trial. They didn't argue on either side of his case. They didn't give testimony as eyewitness to his guilt or innocence. They didn't serve in the jury and vote to convict him. They sure didn't sentence him, which was, after all, the final say in the matter. So her revenge seems tainted and it loses any "poetry" it might have enjoyed if it had been directed at any or all of them. And in the final scene the director might have saved the plot rationalization had her next "victim" been any of those truly responsible. But I don't see someone hating the guards and wanting them to pay.
And Marcus? Why Marcus? Did she just frame him and ruin his life, effectively doing to him what had been done to her father, for the fun of it? She wears a ying-yang pendant on her neck but fails to grasp this little injustice she, herself caused?
Like they say, God, or the devil, is in the details. And this little detail, both of them, ruin the entire premise and spoil the degree to which you can call this a realistic story. If they'd gotten that right it would have been a completely satisfying viewing because the basic idea, as well as the outstanding performances, were all excellent, even noteworthy.
While it may not sound like it, I did enjoy the movie, but these Two Little Details upset the whole apple cart as far as I'm concerned.
With that said, I still gave it a 7. Worth the watch.
