DEAD MAN WALKING

2 hours 2 minutes, USA 1995

Director: Tim Robbins; Producers: Tim Robbins, Jon Kilik and Rudd Simmons; Screenplay: Tim Robbins, based on the book by Helen Prejean; Photography: Roher Deakins; Production Design: Richard Hoover; Editing: Lisa Zeno Churgin and Ray Hubley; Music: David Robbins.

Stars: Susan Sarandon (Sister Helen Prejean), Sean Penn (Matthew Poncelet), Robert Prosky (Hilton Barber), Raymond J. Barry (Earl Delecroix), R. Lee Ermey (Clyde Percy), Celia Weston (Mary Beth Percy), Lois Smith (Mrs. Prejean), Scott Wilson (Chaplain Farley), Roberta Maxwell (Lucille Poncelet), Margo Martindale (Sister Colleen).

Susan Sarandon got the Oscar for Best Actress this year, and it isn't difficult to see why with this movie. Seldom do Hollywood produce movies which, despite the lurid subject matter, concentrate on the human spirit and come out as well as this. Adapted from the book of the same title, Dead Man Walking tells the story of Sister Helen Prejean, a nun from Louisiana who receives a letter out of the blue from a convicted killer on Death Row. The prisoner, Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn), was convicted on two counts of murder and one of rape after the bodies of a teenage couple were found in the swamps near Baton Rouge. Poncelet's execution has been scheduled for a month's hence, and his purpose in writing was to lend some weight from the religious community to an appeal he was planning. However, in Sister Helen, he gets much more than he ever imagined and, as the time grows ever shorter, Helen and Matthew develop an emotional attachment which leaves her in a terrible dilemma between right and wrong.

Sarandon and Penn are nothing short of sensational in this film. Both actors endow their characters with such humanity and believability that sometimes the film has an almost documentary feel to it. Sarandon's character, Helen Prejean, goes through many changes during the course of the film as her beliefs and morals are questioned by all around her. Obviously, Poncelet has done a terrible thing and deserves to be punished, but is death the final solution? Dead Man Walking offers views from both sides of the argument, with the families of the victims baying for blood and the family of Poncelet unable to see the horrors of his actions. Even her previously unwavering faith in Christianity is challenged from two sides - should she embrace the old testament's teaching's of an eye for an eye, or the new testament's words of forgiveness and redemption. Poncelet, at the beginning, is simply trying to escape the electric chair by commandeering some innocent bible-basher to act as a character witness, but through Sister Helen he comes to understand the enormous suffering his deed caused and begins to take responsibility for himself. Sean Penn is another very underrated actor, and his screen presence is captivating. His encounters with Sarandon are emotionally super-charged as he slowly begins to open up to her, and trust her with his innermost feelings. Penn conveys fear very well and, as the film progresses, we begin to feel a great sympathy for his character, despite him being a killer, blatantly racist and often irrational.

The film is directed with admirable restraint by Sarandon's real-life partner Tim Robbins, also an Oscar nominee. One intriguing subtlety I noticed throughout the film was the way in which the physical barriers between Sarandon and Penn come down at the same rate as the personal and emotional ones. At the beginning, the two are separated by wire mesh, which changes to clear perspex, to wide metal bars, to, finally, nothing at all, which is when they finally declare their love for eachother. This film could so easily have been a movie-of-the-week with delusions of grandeur. However, rather than falling back on the usual stereotypes, Robbins flips them on their head. Poncelet was not a battered child; his father, although alcoholic, was a childhood idol; his mother and brothers love him dearly. Sister Helen, on the other hand, is not a typical nun - her lack of a Carmelite habit comes as a shock to the prison chaplain and her free way of speaking endears her to many. It is these changes which lift Dead Man Walking above the usual prison movie dross. The only quibble I would have is with David Robbins' soundtrack, which seems to have its roots in Indian and Pakistani music and doesn't fit at all. This said, however, I would have no hesitation is recommending Dead Man Walking to anyone with a mind to see a film which is profoundly moving, intelligent and restores faith in the human spirit.