Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (2005)--3/5

Upon hearing that a rival hangman has completed a job in fourteen seconds, Albert Pierrpoint (Timothy Spall) vows to beat the mark. His next hanging clocks in at seven-and-a-half seconds. This brings up a few questions:

1) At what time do you start timing? The stop time is obvious, but not the start.

2) Is there some sort of adjudicating committee that keeps track of hanging time around the country? If so, they should really get some rules written down so people aren't cheating on their start times.

To Pierrepoint, a quick hanging is a "humane" hanging. He has no interest in criminals' crimes or stories. By the time Pierrepoint encounters them, they've been through what he thinks of as an infallible process. The only thing left is to get the job done as a professional courtesy.

Timothy Spall has made a career out of pathetic, hangdog characters. In "Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman," his skills are used to create a man of strong convictions, but one who is out of step with society. His reactions to growing protests are to hide in his house and stutter rebuttals. He can't understand why anyone would take much interest in his work, much less pubicly condemn him for it.

Of course something must pierce Pierrepoint's repose at the gallows. Will it be the young lady, the thirteen Nazi men and women in the same day, or his old drinking buddy, charged with killing a lover in cold blood? Hmm, I wonder...


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