ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 3, 1996 TAG: 9602070008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 10 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
Very few movies could live up to the hype that has preceded the opening of Tim Robbins' new movie, "Dead Man Walking."
So the best advice is: Lower those expectations before you go to see this movie.
But go to see this movie.
Because no matter where you stand on the death penalty, it offers an all-you-can-eat banquet of food for thought. In fact, Robbins seems to have made himself a little nervous in the effort to make sure that all sides are adequately represented at the table.
But that is one of few flaws.
"Dead Man Walking," based on a book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, is about a death row inmate's final weeks. The inmate, Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn), has been sentenced to die for the murders of two teen-agers, a crime in which he claims to have had only a peripheral role.
He begins a correspondence with Prejean (Susan Sarandon), who works in a Slidell, La., housing development. Sarandon uses her wide eyes to give Prejean a quality of intelligent innocence as she enters a prison for the first time and meets Poncelet.
"You ever met a murderer before?" he asks her, slyly.
"Not that I know of," she replies - a perfect answer for a woman who has chosen to have faith - not necessarily trust - in other people.
From the outset, Poncelet wants her help in fighting his execution. His sentence, he points out, is arbitrary. After all, his accomplice is serving a life sentence. And Poncelet's court-appointed attorney was a tax lawyer with no experience trying a capital murder case.
Prejean gets a lawyer to present Poncelet's case to the board of pardons, but the board is made up of governor appointees. And the governor, after all, "needs" Poncelet's execution to placate the black community, which has watched too many of its own be executed in recent months.
Robbins doesn't play in the gray area with many of his characters as they line up across a fence from each other: those who want Poncelet to die and those who do not.
What makes the movie crackle are those moments when the true believers come into contact with the fence-sitter - Prejean. The sister's accidental meeting with the victims' families at the pardon board hearing and her visits to them at her home are absolutely right on - painfully so.
And her meetings with Matthew Poncelet, who is a disciple of himself - a believer only in the gospel according to Matthew - grow in intensity as he approaches his death. Penn's performance is absolutely masterful: His eyes, barely slits in the beginning, open gradually as he nears acceptance of responsibility for his own fate. And not for a moment does it seem like a cliche - to let him "see" the light.
"Dead Man Walking" doesn't offer any solutions, and takes a very safe side: that all this killing - no matter who does it - is wrong. But it's comforting to know that not everyone has quit worrying about the questions.
Dead Man Walking
*** 1/2
A Gramercy Pictures release showing at The Grandin Theatre. 122 min. Rated R for violence, disturbing subject matter.
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: "Dead Man Walking" stars Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.by CNBcolor.