DEAD MAN WALKING is one of those movies that comes with a pre-ordained rep that it “will make you think” or “challenge your beliefs”, in this instance around that dependable vibe-wrecker, the death penalty. Want to ruin a party or a date—that subject is a surefire buzzbuster. We’ll readily grant that the acting is excellent in this 1995 drama, written & directed by Tim Robbins, emphatically starring his wife Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. She won an Oscar as Best Actress, playing real-life nun Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote the book Robbins adapted, 278 pages based on her time spent with men waiting on Death Row in Louisiana’s State Penitentiary. As for “playing fair”, we call a foul. When making a case, it helps to leave out pesky info that might snuff your ‘truth’. *

In Louisiana, Sister Helen Prejean takes time away from attending to the poor in one of New Orleans projects to visit the foreboding pen known as Angola. She acts as an advocate for convicted rapist & murderer ‘Matthew Poncelet’ (Penn), whose years on Death Row are coming to an end. Prejean and Poncelet form a mentor-pupil relationship, with her as his spiritual advisor. She also has occasion to meet with the families of his victims. They don’t share her opinion on the death penalty or the hope that the man who brutally abused and callously killed their children can find some actual remorse, let alone redemption.

Sarandon glows with conviction, Penn sneers with the white trash version of acuity. The forever bereaved parents are played by Raymond J. Barry, R. Lee Ermey (one of his best roles, certainly the most atypical) and Celia Weston. Whether or not Prejean’s passion or Robbins treatment moves anyone’s needle on the death penalty debate is iffy, but the performances are beyond reproach. **

Besides her win, nominations went for Best Actor (Penn), Robbins as Director, and to Bruce Springsteen’s song “Dead Man Walkin'”. Reviews tended to the ecstatic, and the box office stats secured position #39 for 1995, the US gross ticketing $39,387,000, enough to cancel the $11,000,000 cost. Add the foreign receipts, a further $43,701,000. **

Sorry, Sister, but Sean suffering for Our Sins really does summon up “Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

With Robert Prosky, Lois Smith, Scott Wilson, Roberta Maxwell, Margo Martindale, Clancy Brown (an amusing bit as a State Trooper who catches Prejean speeding) and Michael Cullen. There are early roles for Peter Sarsgaard (feature debut, 23) and Jack Black. 122 minutes.

* Over one million people were murdered in the United States between 1965 and the early 2020’s (mercifully, the rate has recently declined to levels in line with the early 1900’s). Rapes?  Sexual assaults (reported) currently register at least 444,000 a year. Ask the maimed victims and their crushed loved ones what punishment they believe would be ‘just’. Would their answers conflict with your comfortably removed philosophical wishes? Now skip from unforgiving reality back to the film’s arrogant ‘honesty’.  In exchange for Penn’s Christ-like ‘sacrifice’—absent agony— to “our” collective base bloodlust, how about if instead the script & direction really do “play fair”? Rather than maybe two minutes of juxtaposed and ‘tastefully’distanced peeks (soundless and twenty or thirty yards away) at the depredations done by Poncelot and his pal we instead get the entire, hour-long, full-length repeated rapes, go up close with every stab wound, every ounce of humiliation and torment from the hopeless and terrified  teenagers and get doused by a full cup of sadistic glee from the perpetrators? Or would that maybe force you to “reconsider”?

“Plenty of time to read my Bible and look for a loophole.”  No shit.

** Putting aside my antipathy to the conveniently slanted film we duly realize that soulful Sarandon is always so good it’s hard to take anything away from her. Yet we might opt for nominees Elisabeth Shue in Leaving Las Vegas, or Meryl Streep in The Bridges Of Madison County and strong cases could also be made for Nicole Kidman in To Die For and Linda Fiorentino of The Last Seduction. 

For the record (like it matters a damn), as a citizen my concern with the death penalty is that it can be misapplied, and putting innocent people to death qualifies as a crime as well as a tragedy. Studies indicate that around 4% of those on Death Row may be innocent. Plus the costs and time involved in continual exhaustive stays and retrials add to the misery toll on the relatives of those who were victimized. Fair enough. But as to the morality stick waving that it “lowers us to their level”, I won’t buy that insulting, self-righteous tripe for a split second.