BEFORE: I've got some extra time since it's Friday/Saturday, so I'm really going to try to catch up here, a double-shot of Laura Dern movies should make it possible for me to hit Mother's Day on time, then I'll worry about the rest of the month later. Jason Douglas carries over from "A Scanner Darkly" - there are like a dozen Jason Douglases in the IMDB but I made sure this was the same one.
THE PLOT: The tragic and controversial story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was sentenced to death in Texas for killing his three children even after scientific evidence and expert testimony bolstered his claims of innocence.
AFTER: Well, if there's one case that people who are against the death penalty want to point to, to prove that occasionally an innocent person might get executed, it's this one, the case of Cameron Todd Willingham v. Texas. One 2004 article in the Chicago Tribune pointed out how problematic the investigation against him and his trial were, then another article in The New Yorker in 2009 also championed his cause, claiming that he was most likely innocent and that the arson investigators had started with the premise that he was guilty, and thus interpreted the evidence with that in mind. At his trial only one person spoke in his defense, and that person was a babysitter who said she could not imagine him killing his children.
There's a clear point of view here, the filmmakers definitely set out to prove this man's innocence, and maybe they were correct, I don't know, but it still ends up being very heavy-handed, like an after-school special, but one taking place on Death Row. Come on, every person on death row claims they are innocent, how are we, the audience, supposed to know which ones are telling the truth and which ones are lying? Mostly we trust the system, but we also have to be open to the possibility that the system is broken, or at least flawed. So we'll never really know, possibly because so many people at different levels of Texas state government either refused to re-open the case or re-examine the evidence or second guess the verdict, possibly because that would have highlighted their own incompetence or threatened their own jobs. Also, we understand that many government workers are quite busy, the ones that aren't incompetent are probably picking up the slack and don't have a moment to spare. I guess we tell ourselves that so we can sleep at night and feel protected in an unsafe and insane world.
I guess I thought this would be more of a crime procedural, and it sort of is, however since the subject is in prison for the majority of the film, that means it can easily get very boring, because day after day, nothing seems to change. Well, as prison movies go, maybe that's what you want, because here you can really feel the duration of his sentence, but at the same time that also means that the film feels like it's dragging on and on. Sure, eventually there's a resolution however once you've been made to like this character then it may not be a resolution that you can get behind, that's the other risk you take with a prison flick. Since Todd bonds with one of his guards over their shared support for the Dallas Cowboys, there's almost a Shawshank-ish feel to this one, but come on, "Shawshank Redemption" may be the single best prison movie ever made, and this one's never going to be able to compete with it.
Willingham is shown going a little crazy in prison, though, and perhaps this is understandable. Flashbacks of better days with his wife lead to him having conversations with his dead daughter, and this is portrayed by having a young actress appear in the cell with him. That's all a bit creepy, maybe, but if we believe that Todd could see her when he talked to her, then that's his reality. He also takes the time in prison to study art and poetry and how to write more eloquently, I suppose one has to do something to pass the time - but this leads to him corresponding by mail with a playwright who ends up visiting him and then championing his cause when she learns how terribly his defense lawyer failed to represent him at trial. She also learns that Todd's cellmate, who claimed to have heard him confess, received a reduced sentence for testifying against him, and the prosecution's "expert" who declared him a sociopath never even met him, and was also paid for his testimony.
Make of that what you will, but the findings of the professional arson investigator who re-opened the case later on and examined the evidence without bias or pre-determining the outcome were probably the best indicator of the truth in the case.
Directed by Edward Zwick (director of "Blood Diamond" and "Defiance")
Also starring Jack O'Connell (last seen in "Tulip Fever"), Laura Dern (last seen in "Year of the Dog"), Emily Meade (last seen in "That Awkward Moment"), David Wilson Barnes (last seen in "Miss Sloane"), Jeff Perry (last seen in "Lizzie"), Jade Pettyjohn (last seen in "Destroyer"), Chris Coy (last seen in "The Front Runner"), McKinley Belcher III, James Healy Jr. (last seen in "Killers of the Flower Moon"), Anthony Reynolds (last seen in "Project Almanac"), Chris Shurley, Wayne Pére (last seen in "Bottoms"), Darren Pettie (last seen in "The International"), Blake Scott Lewis, Noah Lomax (last seen in "Safe Haven"), Carlos Gomez (last seen in "Ride Along 2"), Katie McClellan (last seen in "21 Bridges"), Lena Levings, Catherine Carlen (last seen in "Like a Boss"), Rhoda Griffis (last seen in "Runaway Jury"), Blair Bomar (last seen in "The Turkey Bowl"), Cara Reid, Whitney Goin (last seen in "Landscape with Invisible Hand"), Mary Rachel Quinn (last seen in "Dear John"), Elle Graham (last seen in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret."), Josh Breslow (last seen in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"), Andy Stahl (last seen in "The Blind Side"), Sonny Carl Davis (last seen in "Melvin and Howard"), Russ Tiller, Carrie Walrond Hood (also last seen in "The Front Runner"), Trent L. Horn, Lindsay Ayliffe (last seen in "The Eyes of Tammy Faye"), Trenton Rostedt, Bert Neff, Maxie McClintock (last seen in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip"), Todd Allen Durkin (last seen in "Fly Me to the Moon"), Jonathan D. Williams (last seen in "Till"), Jackson Beals (ditto), Joshua Mikel (last seen in "Brothers"), Gerry May (last seen in "Drive Angry"), Cindy Ralston, Jackson Pyle (last seen in "Fantastic Four" (2015)), Pete Burris (last seen in "Insurgent"), Abigail Dolan, Deedra Jordan, Sheri Mann Stewart (last seen in "Table 19")
with archive footage of Rick Perry (last seen in "Running With Beto"), Brian Williams (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life") and the voice of Petros Papadakis.
RATING: 5 out of 10 pages sent by fax machine
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