Review of Dead Man Walking (1995) by Jessica L — 02 Dec 2009

Susan Sarandon is my favorite actress. She is so amazing!! And Sean Penn is great in this movie too. I really want to read the book. It's such an honest story of the struggle between justice and humanity and how to treat other human beings.

I felt the director had a gift of communicating all the possible reactions to not only the death penalty but also the people it had a major impact on because of personal loss. I think the amazing thing about this movie is that it's not really a movie saying the death penalty is wrong or right.

It does show both for and against views fairly and I think that it allowed me to personal discovery of what I ultimately believe and WHY I feel the way I do. It's interesting. If you watch it you might have a completely different experience but when I watched it there I took a journey thinking it's wrong to kill another human being always including those sitting on death row to there should be a death penalty and then back again to they shouldn't kill a person on death row and then to my final opinion that as terrible as it is to kill another human being it is vital in order to close the wound opened by them, the killer.

It's sad and tragic and I feel for the character sean penn played as well as the families whose teenage children were brutally murdered. It was such a beautiful thing to see how it was effecting the man on death row's own family.

I think a lot of people like to write off the murderer's family because so many people write off the person as a complete animal and monster.