Clemency

What turned out to be a promising start, sadly the ending wasn't that satisfying to me. Nevertheless, exceptional performance by the cast, mainly by Aldis Hodge, Alfre Woodard and Alex Castillo. This film literally brought tears to my eyes.

This features a really poignant and strong effort from Alfre Woodard as the warden of a prison charged with ensuring the execution of prisoners. She, "Bernadine" is finding it increasingly more difficult to reconcile the responsibilities of her job with her own conscience and her marriage. None of these demons are helped when one such "procedure" goes awry and, though not her fault, she finds herself under increased scrutiny as Aldis Hodge's "Woods" is soon to follow. The performance elements of this from Woodard and from Wendell Pierce as her loving but increasingly exasperated husband "Jonathan" work well, creating a really quite powerful vision of a woman torn between remaining objective - she is, after all, doing her job - and of a woman increasingly appreciative of the terminal nature of her task and of her own failings and religiosity. The remainder of the drama, last minute appeals etc., works less well and Richard Schiff really doesn't deliver much at all as the convicted man's attorney "Lumetta" - a man who seems to be trying to imbue hope in a man based on wishful thinking and some far-fetched technicalities. Auteur Chinonye Chukwu takes her time with this impassioned story and that's no bad thing at times, allowing us to become a little more immersed in the character of the troubled "Bernadine". At other times, though, the pace really does need a bit of a shake. The whole isn't as good as the sum of the parts, but it's still quite a thought-provoking look at just where responsibility lies in circumstances none of us would ever want to experience.

... by Alfre Woodward in a devastating film about inhumanity - presiding over death row executions takes its toll as she, the governor, witnesses first hand, the brutality of a world trying to be just and fair but failing badly.

Outstanding performances, no question about that, but the long dragged out scenes, slow pacing, and 112 mins, made this film feel like it was never going to end. Add to that its depressing nature, you start begging for it to end. Many times I had to fast forward a scene where the character would just be staring into space forever. I get that it's supposed to build suspense, but it was just way to long, too many times, the silence became annoying. Cinematography was excellent, and the score on point. And the conceptual story was well put together, but the long screenplay flawed it. Had this film's pacing been faster, and many of the dragged out scenes edited/cut down, I would have enjoyed this much better. Sadly, it's only a 6/10 from me

Alfre Woodard gives an award worthy performance in this stark and depressing movie about capital punishment.

I know there are arguments for and against capital punishment, and I'm not entirely sure where I land on the subject, though I'm much more against than for. I do know that every time I actually see or read something about what's involved to actually put someone to death, it leaves me almost nauseated. "Clemency" opens with the execution by lethal injection of a death row prisoner, and it's incredibly disturbing to watch. To know that there's a whole system and process that exists for the sole purpose of ending the life of another human being just feels wrong, no matter what arguments there may be on the other side. This film obviously thinks so too, and doesn't even attempt to address any other point of view.

It's an awfully uneven movie. The scenes set in the prison that show Woodard's warden character battling with the inhumanity her role asks of her are very good. But the domestic scenes that detail her troubled relationship with her husband and a long scene involving two other characters (a man condemned to death, played by Aldis Hodge, and the mother of his child) veer off into clunky melodrama.

A good but not great film, most worth watching for Woodard's performance.

Grade: B+