A Life for a Life

Another true-life drama extremely well acted. Unfortunately these little gems lay buried beneath the mass of B grade movies dished up on cable. (I saw this on cable) A stirring true story depicting another example of a terrible injustice and the ramifications for all involved. A similar British-made movie, Let Him Have It, is another example of someone who is dealt a raw deal by the justice system.. A Life for a Life, I believe, is the first movie for Tony Maudsley, who plays the leading role of a mentally retarded man wrongfully accused of the murder of a ten year old girl and spent 16 years in prison. Olympia Dukakis plays his mother in what is another superb performance from this fine actress. All in all, a gut wrenching journey into the lives of those who draw the short straw of life.

Sadly, this case is not uncommon due to the mindset of the police who have a profile of the guilty, are determined to fit the facts to their profile and disregard what doesn't fit. The prosecutors who withhold evidence from the defence and ignore evidence which would clear the suspect. Witnesses who could clear the suspect and are not called to give evidence, possibly because the prosecution withheld that evidence from the deference or they did not come forward until too late. "Witnesses' like the young girls who made false allegations for fun, then never admitted their had lied, and not forgetting the public perception that a suspect must be guilty as he has been arrested. Add all this to the suspect not being 'good looking' and you have the perfect storm.

We only know of this miscarriage of justice because the case was reopened and Stephan Kiscko was cleared, and would never have been convicted if the investigation had not ignored evidence which did not fit. To his credit, the mentally battered Stephan steadfastly refused to admit his guilt, after the first coerced confession made without a legal representative. He was promised parole if he confessed and told that he would spend the rest of his life in jail if he did not confess. He was offered mental health treatment as a reward for admitting he was a sexual predator, but he refused to admit to what he had not done.

Were the girls who lied ever charged with perjury? Were the police and prosecutors who railroaded Stephan ever reprimanded? the pressure to obtain a confession after he was jailed was an attempt to get the police off the hook and protect them from being investigated. A very frightening tale of injustice. How many other innocent men and woman languish in jail through sloppy prosecution?

This movie will probably make you cry, because it speaks with the power of reality, and the acting was top notch for all roles, main and secondary alike. In comparison, "Killing fields" lost a lot because of a few lousy actors.

Back to "Life for a life" (AKA "The story of Stefan Kiszko"), this is a moving movie, not quite sophisticated as, for example, "Requiem for a dream", but all the more direct. As I said in the title of this review, it's -simply- powerful.

How powerful was the movie, to me? Suffice it to say that I have been waking up in the morning, for a few days after watching the movie, thinking about Stefan and his mother, feeling deeply sad for them and saying a prayer, with my faith in God getting a whole new meaning. Yes, it was that deep. Without faith, I thought, the pain described in the movie could be utterly unbearable, even for just the honest audience of this movie. Because, I think, this is what this movie needs; an honest, emotionally participating and empathic audience above all, that will somehow try to make the wrongs of this world a little bit better.

But... Please can we be careful how we describe Stefan Kiszko? I never met him, but I saw him on TV in an interview. He suffered from hypogonadism which gave him a certain physical appearance, including being very overweight. He was socially very awkward and later became mentally ill, hardly surprisingly.

Several people here have described him as 'retarded'. I'm not quite sure what they mean by this, but presumably they are implying low intelligence? As far as I am aware he was actually a well educated and intelligent man. He worked as an income tax clerk, drove his own car to work and spoke several foreign languages. He may not have been a genius, but I strongly believe it would be an injustice to label him as 'retarded' on the basis of his clumsy appearance or awkward manner.

I think possibly what this film demonstrates is how easily people are slotted into pigeonholes. One of the reasons why Stefan Kiszko was convicted was because the police were so keen to see an awkward, fat, socially incompetent man as fitting the 'profile' (their stereotype) of a child molester.

Familiar story line which was well written and held attention and uncertainty of the outcome right to the end. Acting by all participants was extremely well done. Surprised this movie did not win an award somewhere?