Dead Man Walking (1995)

Most everyone has an opinion on whether they are for or against capital punishment. It's a fairly black and white choice.  In high school, I was given an assignment to write a letter to a newspaper editor based on an article I read in the local newspaper. I was stumped so I asked my father (who had lots of opinions) if he had a good topic. He mentioned an article in the current newspaper.  "What do you think about the death penalty," he asked me. I was pretty sure he was for it. A human being kills another human being, often heinously and with no remorse.  If caught and convicted, they should be put to death for their crime. It made sense to me. I wrote a letter to the editor praising the story about the death penalty. I wrote that I agreed that the death penalty is a good determent. The letter was published in the Letters to the Editor section of the newspaper. In those days, your name, address, and city were at the bottom of the letter. I received a passing grade for the assignment. 

That next Saturday morning, my Mom came into my room around 9am.  I was still asleep.  She said someone was on the phone for me. I stumbled to the phone. The person on the other end asked if I was the author of the letter about the death penalty. I said I was. The caller wasn't mean or nasty but they questioned why I chose the pro death penalty opinion. I sheepishly told them it was a school assignment and my Dad has suggested that topic. I thanked the caller and hung up before any debate could begin. As an adult in my late 50s, I think of that call when the topic of capital punishment comes up on the news or internet. My opinion on the death penalty has changed over time.  News stories began to surface of men unjustly arrested, convicted and executed for murders that would later be found they did not commit.  Overzealous police officers and district attorneys trying to convict the wrong person. What seemed like such a black and white topic had become very, very gray. 

To make a film about the pros and cons of capital punishment, the film world had the good fortune that actor/director Tim Robbins decided to take on such a project with DEAD MAN WALKING (1995). Robbins, an accomplished actor known for films like Ron Shelton's BULL DURHAM (1988) with Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon; Robert Altman's THE PLAYER (1992), and Clint Eastwood's MYSTIC RIVER (2003) costarring Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon had tried his hand at directing earlier with the well-received BOB ROBERTS (1992) co-starring Alan Rickman and Gore Vidal about a conservative folk singer who runs for the Senate. Never one to hide his liberal views, Robbins could have gone for the easy choice and just show one side of the death penalty argument. He doesn't and that makes DEAD MAN WALKING a more compelling, thoughtful film. 

Written and directed by Tim Robbins based on Sister Helen Prejean's non-fiction book of the same title, DEAD MAN WALKING (1995) begins with convicted murderer Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn) reaching out via letter to the non-profit Hope House in the projects of New Orleans, Louisiana looking for some legal assistance and someone to talk to. After talking it over with her fellow nun Sister Colleen (Margo Martindale), Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) agrees to meet with Poncelet.  She drives out to Angola Prison where Poncelet is incarcerated.  Sister Helen first meets with Chaplain Farley (Scott Wilson), a crusty prison priest who questions Helen's modern attire and progressive attitude. Farley informs her that Poncelet has been convicted of murdering two teenagers Walter Delacroix (Peter Sarsgaard) and Hope Percy (Missy Yager) out on a Lover's Lane. Hope was raped before she died. Helen meets the pompadour coiffed Poncelet who is surprised that a nun came to talk to him. Poncelet denies killing Walter or raping Hope, claiming he was high on drugs and just along for the ride, blaming their deaths on his scarier buddy Carl Vitello (Michael Cullen). Helen doesn't know what to believe. Poncelet asks her to file an appeal for him. Helen promises she'll do her best.

Back in New Orleans, Helen receives a call from Poncelet.  He's been notified that he's been placed on death row. Helen contacts a tax lawyer named Hilton Barber (Robert Prosky) who agrees to take up his case. Barber wants to present Poncelet at the Review Board as a human being, a man with a family who loves him. He sends Helen to meet with Poncelet's mother Lucille Poncelet (Roberta Maxwell) and his three younger brothers. Helen asks Mrs. Poncelet if she will speak on Matthew's behalf at the hearing. Mrs. Poncelet reluctantly agrees. At the Review Board, Barber presents his case why Poncelet should not be executed. Attending the review are the parents of the slain teenagers: Earl Delacroix (Raymond J. Berry) and Clyde and Mary Beth Percy (R. Lee Ermey and Celia Weston). The State presents its case for Poncelet to be executed. While the Board decides, Sister Helen introduces herself to Earl who's outraged that she has taken up his son's killer's cause. The Board returns and denies Poncelet's request for a stay. He will be executed by lethal injection. 

Poncelet asks Sister Helen to be his spiritual adviser and she accepts. Helen visits Earl Delacroix at his home. His absent wife is ready to move on, but Earl can't let go that his son is dead (later Earl will reveal at a victims counseling meeting his wife has asked for a divorce). Helen visits with the Percy's. They tell her about what their daughter Hope planned to do with her life. The visit goes well until they learn Helen is still advising Poncelet. They angrily ask her to leave. Helen joins some other anti-death penalty protesters at a vigil for another inmate who's executed. Helen and Poncelet discuss his growing up poor and his racist origins. Helen tries to make Poncelet see the Delacroix's and Percy's viewpoints toward him. She asks Poncelet to own up to his role in the teenagers' deaths. Helen starts to feel blowback from the community she works for, even from her mother (Lois Smith). As his execution draws closer, Poncelet is placed all by himself in a special death row wing. Poncelet asks to take a lie detector test to prove he didn't kill those kids. 

Poncelet's mother and three brothers meet with him for the last time in person. The lie detector test comes back inconclusive. Helen talks to Poncelet about that fateful night.  She wants the truth. The warden arrives to let Poncelet know the Federal Appeals Court turned down his last-ditch motion to stay the execution. Poncelet is now on death watch.  He's allowed one final call to his family. He tells Sister Helen he wished he had stood up to Vitello. Poncelet confesses to Helen that he shot young Walter Delacroix. Helen sings a hymn to Poncelet before he's led out of his cell and to the death chamber where prison staff prepare the lethal injection that will end Matthew Poncelet's life.  Earl Delacroix and the Percy's watch Poncelet's final minutes along with Poncelet's lawyer Hilton Barber and Sister Helen. In the end, did the parents get their retribution?  Did Sister Helen help Poncelet find peace? DEAD MAN WALKING'S final shot shows Sister Helen and Earl Delacroix praying together in a small country church. 

A film about the death penalty, coming from the so-called liberal Hollywood would seem like it would be slanted against capital punishment. Director Robbins looks at both sides of the debate with a fair and balanced eye, Sister Helen as the compass, empathizing with both the condemned killer and the parents of the murdered teenagers. We see the anguish that both sets of parents' face after losing a son and a daughter and the toll it takes on them. Earl Devereaux's wife will file for divorce from him.   She's ready to move on from her loss. Earl's haunted by the tragedy, the branch of his family tree ending with his son Walter's death. In flashbacks, we see pieces of that terrible night from Poncelet's perspective. First, it looks like Poncelet's just an accomplice, tagging along like he tells Sister Helen.  Later, when he admits he shot Walter, we're shown that awful moment. As Poncelet lays dying, we see one final flashback. Poncelet not only shot Walter, but he also participated in Hope's rape. Poncelet didn't tell Helen the whole truth. Justice has been handed out right?

DEAD MAN WALKING illuminates the anti-death penalty debate as well.  The disparity between black and poor convicts with little or no legal representation who are executed compared to those inmates with more money and legal expertise who escape the death penalty is out of balance. Poncelet comes from a poor family, the product of a racist father who left them during his formative years. If we call ourselves a civilized society, is killing one human being in retribution for murdering another the right way to go about it? An eye for an eye was the answer back in biblical times. Is it still the answer in the 21st Century? We're told that executions have become less "brutal." The process has progressed from hangings and firing squads and electrocution to the more "humane" lethal injection (Alabama just unveiled its new method of nitrogen gas that asphyxiates the inmate in less than 15 minutes). DEAD MAN WALKING rarely preaches except perhaps Poncelet's final words when he tells those watching, "I just wanna say I think killin' is wrong, no matter who does it, whether it's me or y'all, or your government."

Our guide through this debate whether the death penalty is warranted or not is Sister Helen Prejean played by Susan Sarandon (who would win the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in 1996). Sister Helen is a progressive, modern nun which makes her the right person for this complicated journey. She's not Ingrid Bergman from THE BELLS OF ST. MARY'S in traditional nun garb.  Helen wears a more modern habit.  When she first visits the prison, she meets Chaplain Farley (Scott Wilson), an old school man of cloth.  We have a face-off between the Old Testament (Farley) and the New Testament (Helen). Both will quote from their preferred Testament as they discuss Poncelet and his crimes. Helen's sole goal is both parties to seek forgiveness. For Poncelet, she wants him to admit to his sins and seek forgiveness from the Lord.  For the Delacroix's and the Percy's, Helen asks them to find it in their hearts to forgive Poncelet for his actions. It's an uneasy tightrope that Sister Helen walks that will test her faith to its core. 

I could swear that Sean Penn won an Academy Award for his performance as death row inmate Matthew Poncelet in DEAD MAN WALKING.  When I fact checked my memory, I was wrong.  Penn was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award but lost to Nicholas Cage in Mike Figgis's LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1995). Having seen Cage's performance and not Penn's back in 1995 I would have agreed. Having now watched Penn in DEAD MAN WALKING, I'm not sure why he didn't win.  Penn could have played the role with plenty of histrionics. He doesn't.  He's charming, appalling, sympathetic, pathetic, and in the end, remorseful. At times, we want him to die for what he's done. At times, we want him to escape the death penalty, rehabilitate his life in prison and become a better human being. Penn would lose the Academy Award Best Actor contest to Cage but he did win Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival for DEAD MAN WALKING. 

The supporting roles are are inspired bits of casting by Robbins. Scott Wilson who portrays the prison priest Farley in DEAD MAN WALKING played a killer himself in Richard Brooks IN COLD BLOOD (1967) based on the non-fiction book by Truman Capote about two ex-cons (Wilson and Robert Blake) on the run after killing a family during a botched robbery. Both Raymond J. Berry who plays Earl Delacroix and R. Lee Ermey who plays Clyde Percy, the fathers of the murdered teenagers, are cast against type.  Berry better known for portraying tough DEA agents or senators plays a tortured parent who loses almost everything because of Poncelet's actions. And who can forget the bombastic and blistering Ermey in Stanley Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and as a racist Ku Klux Klan member in Alan Parker's MISSISSIPPI BURNING (1988). In DEAD MAN WALKING, Ermey is the grieving father of a murdered teenage daughter. Look for early performances in DEAD MAN WALKING by Jack Black (SCHOOL OF ROCK) as one of Poncelet's brothers; Peter Sarsgaard (JARHEAD) as the murdered Walter Delacroix; and Clancy Brown (THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION) as a Louisiana State Trooper. 

There are some interesting connections in DEAD MAN WALKING between the cast and the director. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon starred together in BULL DURHAM where they would begin a relationship after the film and live together for 21 years, having two children, before separating in 2009. Sarandon would win her only Best Actress Oscar as Sister Helen Prejean for DEAD MAN WALKING, written and directed by her partner Tim Robbins.  In 2003, Robbins and Sean Penn along with Kevin Bacon would star together in Clint Eastwood's gritty MYSTIC RIVER, about three Boston childhood friends caught up in a murder as adults.  Penn would win his first Best Actor Academy Award for MYSTIC RIVER (he would win a second for Gus Van Sant's MILK in 2008) and Robbins would win Best Supporting Actor for MYSTIC RIVER.  A very young Jack Black appears in DEAD MAN WALKING as one of Poncelet's younger brothers Craig Poncelet.  Black first appeared in Robbins BOB ROBERTS and they would act together in Stephen Frears comedy HIGH FIDELITY (2000) starring John Cusack. Lastly, Robbins and Clancy Brown would appear in Frank Darabont's THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994) based on the Stephen King novel where Robbins plays a man falsely accused of murder who ends up in prison. 

The subject matter would entice some talented people to participate on DEAD MAN WALKING.  For Academy Award winning cinematographer Roger Deakins (FARGO, SKYFALL), DEAD MAN WALKING is one of his early efforts. Notice how Sean Penn as Poncelet is mostly photographed behind bars or a screen, furthering the sense of incarceration.  Deakins was the Director of Photography for THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, another film mostly set in prison, which starred Robbins and Morgan Freeman. On the music front, Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam contributes vocals to a couple of songs on the soundtrack including The Long Road written by Vedder and co-sung with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.  Bruce Springsteen wrote and sang the title song Dead Man Walking over the film's closing credits. The term "Dead Man Walking" is what one of the prison guards calls out when they escort Poncelet to his execution. 

In 2023, 24 inmates were executed in the United States.  So far in 2024, two inmates have been executed: 1 in Alabama and 1 in Texas.  A third execution in Idaho was botched and stopped when officials couldn't set the IV line carrying the lethal injection to the inmate. In Florida this year, a 30th death row inmate was exonerated of his crimes and released in that state since having the death penalty. DEAD MAN WALKING didn't stop executions.  The debate will continue. DEAD MAN WALKING should be required viewing for people on both sides of the argument. If they watch it, they will have the opportunity to see mesmerizing career defining performances by Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon and a powerful story that doesn't provide easy answers.