Saturday, March 9, 2024

Movie Review: "Clemency" 01/27/19

This is a movie review for "Clemency", first released January 27, 2019 at the Sundance Festival. We watched this on November 17, 2020 via Hulu.


*WARNING* - This is not a movie for everyone due to the nature of the topic: death row inmates receiving the death penalty.



Trailer








Genre
Drama



Notable Cast

Alfre Woodard - Bernadine Williams
Aldis Hodge - Anthony Woods
Richard Schiff - Marty Lumetta
Wendell Pierce - Jonathan Williams



Plot


Some jobs are tough but none tougher than being a prison warden that executes death row inmates by order of the state. That is Bernadine Williams' job and it isn't easy - protestors, nasty letters, etc. just make it that much more difficult. On top of that is the question about what this work does to the warden's emotional state (or soul). As Bernadine detaches from things around her, the question becomes whether she can continue to do her job and still give the inmates respect.




Rating Criteria

0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.

1/5 – Barely worth any time.

2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.

3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.

4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.

5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.




3.5/5 - Honestly, I had a hard time remembering about this movie so I had to go back and read others' reviews on IMDB. Even so, this wasn't a very rememberable movie. I had rated it 3.5/5 with the only notes saying "Terrible ending that doesn't give us any closure to what happens to Bernadine". Someone had said that you could see her emotional/mental state slipping especially at the end of the movie, but I do not recall that.

Would I rewatch this movie? Maybe, but it isn't high on the list of priorities. Do I recommend it? Not for everyone. It was decent enough to watch to get an insight on what life is like for the warden executing inmates (and the horrors that haunt them afterwards). It also proves the point that J.K. Rowling said in her Harry Potter series - murder tears the soul apart. You can see that it affects Warden Williams throughout her whole life [it is hard to kill someone and then go have a joyful tea party a few hours later]. It makes one think about whether or not death row inmates should actually be executed. True, there are a few cases where their crimes are heinous/atrocious crimes against humanity, but does it mean that we should take *their* lives for what they have done? And what happens if/when the person that is accused is innocent?


On a side note, I heard recently (2024) that some people are saying prisoners sentenced to life without parole cost the state {I don't know which state(s)} too much money and should be executed. Excuse me?! Seriously, what are you thinking? There are still innocent people that are sentenced for things they have not done. And now you're saying that the state/government doesn't want to pay the taxes to keep those inmates alive, so we might as well just off them? What is the world coming to?!
Don't tell me that we've made our justice system better and more efficient, being able to precisely prove who is guilty and who is innocent. It may be better than back in the 1990s, but we are still not all-mighty and all-knowing. There are still cases of innocent people being thrown into jail. There are still people being accused of things without evidence. But you want to go and execute them because we can't afford to keep them alive?! WTF.
This burns me up so I'm going to end the review without going deeper into this argument.



Thank you for reading. More reviews to come eventually!


 
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