Gordon-11
This film is about the work and family life of Britain's most prolific executioner."The Last Hangman" deals with a grim topic which many people would regard as a taboo. It is not easy to make it a good film out of it. Fortunately, "The Last Hangman" has a particularly effective plot that details the psychological change of Pierrepoint as his career progresses. Timothy Spall acts very well, as he delivers a range of undoubtedly effective emotions. From pride, doubt to depression, everything shows on his face clearly."The Last Hangman" is a detailed psychological journey of a gruesome occupation. It should not be missed.
Terrell-4
Albert Pierrepoint was a paragon of lower-middle-class respectability. He and his wife, Annie, lived in a small, tidy house. His favorite supper was pork chop. He was not too keen a man, but serious about those things he held important. Annie was loyal, kept a quiet house and served his meals on time. They had no children. Albert Pierrepoint's job was delivering wholesale supplies to markets. He also had a part-time job, a job he didn't speak about. He hanged people. He did so punctiliously, with dedication and decency. Albert Pierrepoint, according to the movie, was the United Kingdom's last chief hangman. It was a job that ran in his family. His father and uncle were official hangmen, too. Between 1933 and 1955, Pierrepoint hanged over 600 people. Nearly a third were Nazi war criminals. He took with pride and seriousness his duties. When called to perform a hanging he always took the train to the prison site, stayed a night, insisted upon a hot meal, and became so proficient he was able to move the prisoner from the holding cell to the gallows and then to the drop in an average of little more than 11 seconds. His best time was 7.5 seconds, but some believe this prisoner cooperated by stepping to the noose even faster than Pierrepoint. He believed that when a prisoner was hanged the person's guilt was cleansed. He treated the body with respect, cleaning it carefully (the relaxation of the sphincter muscles can sometimes cause a loss of dignity for the dead), and insisting on a coffin of proper size. He was a dedicated practitioner of his craft. Over time he developed a useful chart that analyzed body weight, body height and rope length, He used the chart to insure that the length of the rope was exactly what was required for the drop to break the neck cleanly between the second and third vertebrae. Before Pierrepoint's analysis and his chart, many hangings resulted in slow strangulation if the prisoner was not heavy and the drop too short, or in snapping off of the prisoner's head if the prisoner was heavy and the drop too long. Either situation can result in discomfort for those observing and acute professional embarrassment for the hangman. Albert Pierrepoint's life changed abruptly when his work executing Nazis (he was personally selected for the job by Field Marshal Montgomery) became public knowledge. He became a hero to the British public. He resigned his duties in 1956 over a disputed payment. He and Annie continued to run the pub he had bought partly with his earnings from the Nazi executions. Later, he became a target for those opposed to capital punishment. He died, full of years, in 1992 in a nursing home. As with many biographical and social-issue movies, the director enjoys cleverness and has a social bone to pick, in this case, capital punishment. Just be aware that Albert Pierrepoint is magnificently portrayed by that wonderful actor, Timothy Spall. Juliet Stevenson, one of Britain's great actresses and who is bound to be made a Dame one of these years, is just as good as Annie Pierrepoint. They are worth seeing the picture for, regardless of your tolerance, or lack of it, for hanging Nazis to a Strauss waltz or for the director's willingness to stretch or invent things to make his social point. While the movie, for example, says Pierrepoint managed over 600 hangings, the best research according to some puts the number at about 425 (still a number any conscientious hangman could be proud of). Pierrepoint wasn't the last of the United Kingdom's hangmen and he wasn't really a hangman for the United Kingdom. The movie's emphasis on Pierrepoint's disillusion with capital punishment avoids Pierrepoint's own equivocations. As many directors might say, these are just quibbles that get in the way of a larger artistic truth. For all of the Strauss waltzes, the hangings are shown in grim detail and in close-ups. There is not the slightest attempt to avoid the truth that killing people in cold blood, even if the state demands it, requires that aspect of our nature which is hard to reconcile with our basic beliefs and our daily lives. There are times when I found the movie difficult to watch. At least two of the persons Pierrepoint hanged were later found innocent and, to the joy of their corpses, given posthumous pardons. As you might expect, the movie, which was made originally as a British TV program, went nowhere in Britain. Renamed The Last Executioner for the American market and released briefly in a handful of theaters, it tanked even faster. It's a well-crafted movie, but often grim and polemical. The performances of Spall, in particular, and Stevenson just about redeem any failings. The two are excellent. To enjoy just how fine and versatile an actor Timothy Spall is, watch him in costume as the Mikado in Topsy-Turvy, as a photo archivist in Shooting the Past and as the noxious beadle in Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. For Juliet Stevenson, a couple of her finest performances, I think, are as Nina in Truly Madly Deeply and as the wronged Flora Matlock in The Politician's Wife.
davideo-2
STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning A biography of Albert Pierrepoint (Timothy Spall) Britain's last hangman, who tried to give the people he was called on to kill as much dignity as he could during and after their execution and who eventually resigned from his job feeling he and society had achieved nothing but revenge. The film follows his life, as he goes from being a humble delivery-man to a bakery to his most infamous job and then onto owning a pub with his wife. However, when he's called on to execute one of his closest friends, his stance on his job is put in the ultimate context.Thinking about the recent explosion in violent crime, with stabbings and shootings on the increase, there are a few calling for the return of the death penalty, hoping that will balance the scales of justice properly. Pierrepoint takes us back to a time when this was a daily reality, when state sanctioned murder was carried out without any hesitation or fear of recompense. There are no statistics available to say whether the violent crime rate was lower then or whether the DP acted as a real deterrent, but when the execution date was set, the hangman just killed without hesitation or mercy. Back when 'British justice was the best in the world.' Needless to say, those who choose to watch Pierrepoint will inhibit a a rather grim, bleak world, as the condemned cry, pant and plead before their fate is sealed, the blinds put over them, the noose wrapped around and the trap-door opened.The reliably great Spall carries the film flawlessly, delivering a powerful and mesmerizing performance as well as a spotless Yorkshire accent. As such, this is a man who speaks his mind and stands no bullsh!t, but is also a gentle, humble man who's humanity races to the surface when dealing with those he kills, distancing himself from the details of their crimes so he can see them as people who need thought in their final moments. If, as a society, killing those who kill makes us no better than them, then at least our attitude to their life in contrast to theirs to their victims, can separate us? A small little film about a big subject, Pierrepoint is one to see. ****
