Witness to the Execution

1994
5.1| 1h36m| en
Details

This movie deals with a television network hoping to draw the biggest ratings ever while televising an execution live into the home of every American family.

Director

Producted By

Frederick S. Pierce Company

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Reviews

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.
Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Berneaud This in undoubtedly one of the worst films I saw recently. Everything looks cheap and rushed, especially the plot. Sean Young disappoints as the lead, looking lost and, probably, ashamed to be part of this. Tim Daly is a little better, but still not very good, considering his work on TV's "The Fugitive", for example. Things weren't good, but when we get to the ending it begins to look like a joke.Sean Young slow-motion sprint left me speechless. How can someone sink so low?Very bad indeed...
petershelleyau This TVM about the evil lords of pay-for-view TV hooks into the bread and circuses level of entertainment, but taking us where Jerry Springer is yet to go - live coverage of the execution of death row criminals. That the company who forms an agreement with politicians is called Tycom may be a reference to Viacom, with Sean Young as the head of programming, Len Cariou as her boss, and Timothy Daly as the convicted killer chosen for his appeal to women, who we are told control the remote in American households. Although Daly's Sean Penn Dead Man Walking bouffant gives him a sociopathic suggestion, to Young he is a pussycat, which leads her to believe that he is innocent, so director Tommy Lee Wallace gives us a race against the "countdown to justice". The teleplay by Thomas Baum hasn't decided what we ultimately should believe about Daly. It has Young leaning towards his innocence which would make her want to pull the program, but the case it offers in his defense is hardly believable and represented by Dee Wallace Stone in a I'm making the most of my few scenes performance. This therefore works against Young's character, who has been previously established as cynical and savvy, and Wallace skimps on any romance between Young and Daly. Looking very beautiful, Young gives some surprising line readings, and provides a memorable howl. The climactic execution set reminded me of something from Triumph of the Will via Network, with the Big Brother/Big Business implications chillingly realised.