This film although is not perfect, achieves its goal, which I think it is to open the difficult conversation about the death penalty, the punishment of the state, the people that are about to be executed even if the charges are false or in question.
Even if there is no happy end, we see a transformation happening inside each and every one of the protagonists, everyone for different reason.
The lawyer, although optimistic until the very last minute, is ready to give up, because as it is being stated in a conversation, he can't change the world.
We have a really splendid performance from the prisoner Woods, one that can make us imagine how it is like for the real death row prisoners, not to have the option to live, even if you they are innocent, to be hopeful, to want to escape from the injustice that is being inflicted upon them but without having the right to do so.
Our female protagonist is at the same time an observer and a witness. A witness of this prison system that used to be her own profession and everyday occupation.
We know as a fact that many of the prisoners that have been executed or are in a death row in USA are often convicted falsely. We know also as a fact that this law, this irreversible act of taking a life, is striking on minorities (Latin, Asian and Black people, and also natives).
There is police injustice and there is prison injustice everywhere. In our film it is being depicted when we finally realize that Woods is not the one that killed the officer. Nevertheless, no one seems to care if this is the truth or not, nobody that works in the prison department. Also, there is a dispassion on our protagonist's face until the very last shot, when she finally wonders whether or not this act of violence towards a human being is somehow excused. She is devastated and we know she will be hunted from their figures, the men that died in the death sentence.
Even if the film is not taking sides about the abolition of prison or what's more, the abolition of the death penalty, it somehow...does.
Abolish Death Penalty because it does not succeed to achieve the goal for a better society. It takes away innocent human lives, and haunts the living.
Even if there is no happy end, we see a transformation happening inside each and every one of the protagonists, everyone for different reason.
The lawyer, although optimistic until the very last minute, is ready to give up, because as it is being stated in a conversation, he can't change the world.
We have a really splendid performance from the prisoner Woods, one that can make us imagine how it is like for the real death row prisoners, not to have the option to live, even if you they are innocent, to be hopeful, to want to escape from the injustice that is being inflicted upon them but without having the right to do so.
Our female protagonist is at the same time an observer and a witness. A witness of this prison system that used to be her own profession and everyday occupation.
We know as a fact that many of the prisoners that have been executed or are in a death row in USA are often convicted falsely. We know also as a fact that this law, this irreversible act of taking a life, is striking on minorities (Latin, Asian and Black people, and also natives).
There is police injustice and there is prison injustice everywhere. In our film it is being depicted when we finally realize that Woods is not the one that killed the officer. Nevertheless, no one seems to care if this is the truth or not, nobody that works in the prison department. Also, there is a dispassion on our protagonist's face until the very last shot, when she finally wonders whether or not this act of violence towards a human being is somehow excused. She is devastated and we know she will be hunted from their figures, the men that died in the death sentence.
Even if the film is not taking sides about the abolition of prison or what's more, the abolition of the death penalty, it somehow...does.
Abolish Death Penalty because it does not succeed to achieve the goal for a better society. It takes away innocent human lives, and haunts the living.
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